Here are the 2022 National Book Critics Circle Award finalists.

Emily Temple

Jan 31

On Tuesday, the National Book Critics Circle announced its 30 finalists for the 2022 National Book Critics Circle Awards, which celebrate the best books of the year in six categories: autobiography, biography, criticism, fiction, general nonfiction, and poetry. The finalists for the John Leonard Prize for best first book and the inaugural Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize were also announced.

The NBCC Service Award, new this year, was awarded to Barbara Hoffert, and the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing was awarded to Jennifer Wilson. The recipient of the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award is Joy Harjo, and the recipient of the 2nd Annual Toni Morrison Achievement Award is City Lights.

"We're an all-volunteer organization with a mission that's simple and sweet: honor outstanding writing and foster a national conversation about reading, criticism, and literature," said NBCC President Megan Labrise in a press release.

The 2022 awards will be presented on March 23, 2023 at the New School in New York City. Until then, here are the finalists:

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Jazmina Barrera, Linea Nigra: An Essay on Pregnancy and Earthquakes, trans. by Christina McSweeney (Two Lines Press)
Hua Hsu, Stay True: A Memoir (Doubleday)
Dorthe Nors, A Line in the World: A Year on the North Sea Coast, trans. by Caroline Waight (Graywolf Press)
Darryl Pinckney, Come Back in September: A Literary Education on West Sixty-seventh Street, Manhattan (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Ingrid Rojas Contreras, The Man Who Could Move Clouds: A Memoir (Doubleday)

BIOGRAPHY

Beverly Gage, G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century (Viking)
Kerri K. Greenidge, The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family (Liveright)
Jennifer Homans, Mr. B: George Balanchine's 20th Century (Random House)
Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman, Metaphysical Animals: How Four Women Brought Philosophy Back to Life (Doubleday)
Aaron Sachs, Up from the Depths: Herman Melville, Lewis Mumford, and Rediscovery in Dark Times (Princeton University Press)

CRITICISM

Rachel Aviv, Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Timothy Bewes, Free Indirect: The Novel in a Postfictional Age (Columbia University Press)
Peter Brooks, Seduced by Story: The Use and Abuse of Narrative (New York Review Books)
Margo Jefferson, Constructing a Nervous System: A Memoir (Pantheon)
Alia Trabucco Zerán, When Women Kill: Four Crimes Retold, trans. Sophie Hughes (Coffee House Press)

FICTION

Percival Everett, Dr. No (Graywolf Press)
Jon Fosse, A New Name: Septology VI-VII, trans. by Damion Searls (Transit Books)
Mieko Kawakami, All the Lovers in the Night, trans. by Sam Bett and David Boyd (Europa Editions)
Ling Ma, Bliss Montage: Stories (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Namwali Serpell, The Furrows (Hogarth)

NONFICTION

Isaac Butler, The Method: How the Twentieth Century Learned to Act (Bloomsbury)
Kelly Lytle Hernandez, Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands (W.W. Norton)
Joseph Osmundson, Virology: Essays for the Living, the Dead, and the Small Things in Between (W.W. Norton)
Annie Proulx, Fen, Bog, & Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis (Scribner)
Ed Yong, An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us (Random House)

POETRY

Mosab Abu Toha, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear (City Lights)
Cynthia Cruz, Hotel Oblivion (Four Way Books)
David Hernandez, Hello I Must Be Going (University of Pittsburgh Press)
Paul Hlava Ceballos, banana [ ] (University of Pittsburgh Press)
Bernadette Mayer, Milkweed Smithereens (New Directions)

GREGG BARRIOS BOOK IN TRANSLATION PRIZE

Boris Dralyuk's translation of Grey Bees by Andrey Kurkov (Deep Vellum)
Jennifer Croft's translation of The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk (Riverhead Books)
Fady Joudah's translation of You Can Be the Last Leaf by Maya Abu Al-Hayyat (Milkweed Editions)
Mara Faye Lethem's translation of When I Sing, Mountains Dance by Irene Solà (Graywolf Press)
Christina MacSweeney's translation of Linea Nigra by Jazmina Barrera (Two Lines Press)
Mark Polizzotti's translation of Kibogo by Scholastique Mukasonga (Archipelago)