Current and historical winners of the National Book Critics Circle Award, with links to further information at BookBrowse.

National Book Critics Circle Award

Each March, the NBCC present awards for the finest books and reviews published in English (in the USA) the previous year in six categories: Fiction, nonfiction, autobiography, biography, criticism and poetry.

Current and Previous Award Winners:

• 2021
• 2020
• 2019
• 2018
• 2017
• 2016
• 2015
• 2014
• 2013
• 2012
• 2011
• 2010
• 2009
• 2007
• 2006
• 2005
• 2004
• 2003
• 2002

• 2021

  
  NBCC Award for Fiction:
  The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois  by  Honorée Fannone Jeffers
  
  NBCC Award for Nonfiction:
  How the Word Is Passed  by  Clint Smith
  
  NBCC Award for Biography:
  All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days  by  Rebecca Donner
  
  NBCC Award for Autobiography:
  Gay Bar  by  Jeremy Atherton Lin
  
  NBCC Award for Criticism:
  Girlhood  by  Melissa Febos
  
  NBCC Award for Poetry:
  frank  by  Diane Seuss
  
  NBCC John Leonard Prize: Best First Book in Any Genre:
  Afterparties  by  Anthony Veasna So

• 2020

  
  NBCC Award for Fiction:
  Hamnet  by  Maggie O'Farrell
  
  NBCC Award for Nonfiction:
  Island on Fire  by  Tom Zoellner
  
  NBCC Award for Biography:
  Stranger in the Shogun's City  by  Amy Stanley
  
  NBCC Award for Autobiography:
  Minor Feelings  by  Cathy Park Hong
  
  NBCC Award for Criticism:
  Marking Time  by  Nicole R. Fleetwood
  
  NBCC Award for Poetry:
  Here is the Sweet Hand  by  francine j. harris
  
  NBCC John Leonard Prize: Best First Book in Any Genre:
  Luster  by  Raven Leilani

• 2019

  
  NBCC Award for Fiction:
  Everything Inside  by  Edwidge Danticat
  
  NBCC Award for Nonfiction:
  Say Nothing  by  Patrick Radden Keefe
  
  NBCC Award for Biography:
  The Queen  by  Josh Levin
  
  NBCC Award for Autobiography:
  Know My Name  by  Chanel Miller
  
  NBCC Award for Criticism:
  Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments  by  Saidiya Hartman
  
  NBCC Award for Poetry:
  Magical Negro  by  Morgan Parker
  
  NBCC John Leonard Prize: Best First Book in Any Genre:
  The Yellow House  by  Sarah M. Broom

• 2018

  
  NBCC Award for Fiction:
  Milkman  by  Anna Burns
  
  NBCC Award for Nonfiction:
  Directorate S  by  Steve Coll
  
  NBCC Award for Biography:
  Flash  by  Christopher Bonanos
  
  NBCC Award for Criticism:
  Feel Free  by  Zadie Smith
  
  NBCC Award for Poetry:
  The Carrying  by  Ada Limón
  
  NBCC John Leonard Prize: Best First Book in Any Genre:
  There There  by  Tommy Orange

• 2017

  
  NBCC Award for Fiction:
  Improvement  by  Joan Silber
  
  NBCC Award for Nonfiction:
  The Evangelicals  by  Frances FitzGerald
  
  NBCC Award for Biography:
  Prairie Fires  by  Caroline Fraser
  
  NBCC Award for Autobiography:
  Nine Continents  by  Xiaolu Guo
  
  NBCC Award for Criticism:
  You Play the Girl  by  Carina Chocano
  
  NBCC Award for Poetry:
  WHEREAS  by  Layli Long Soldier
  
  NBCC John Leonard Prize: Best First Book in Any Genre:
  Her Body and Other Parties  by  Carmen Maria Machado

• 2016

  
  NBCC Award for Fiction:
  LaRose  by  Louise Erdrich
  
  NBCC Award for Nonfiction:
  Evicted  by  Matthew Desmond
  
  NBCC Award for Biography:
  Shirley Jackson  by  Ruth Franklin
  
  NBCC Award for Autobiography:
  Lab Girl  by  Hope Jahren
  
  NBCC Award for Poetry:
  House of Lords and Commons  by  Ishion Hutchinson
  
  NBCC John Leonard Prize: Best First Book in Any Genre:
  Homegoing  by  Yaa Gyasi

• 2015

  
  NBCC Award for Fiction:
  The Sellout  by  Paul Beatty
  
  NBCC Award for Nonfiction:
  Dreamland  by  Sam Quinones
  
  NBCC Award for Biography:
  Negroland  by  Margo Jefferson
  
  NBCC Award for Biography:
  Romantic Outlaws  by  Charlotte Gordon
  
  NBCC Award for Poetry:
  Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude  by  Ross Gay
  
  NBCC John Leonard Prize: Best First Book in Any Genre:
  Night at the Fiestas  by  Kirstin Valdez Quade

• 2014

  
  NBCC Award for Fiction:
  Lila  by  Marilynne Robinson
  
  NBCC Award for Nonfiction:
  The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation  by  David Brion Davis
  
  NBCC Award for Biography:
  Tennessee Williams  by  John Lahr
  
  NBCC Award for Autobiography:
  Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant?  by  Roz Chast
  
  NBCC Award for Poetry:
  Citizen  by  Claudia Rankine
  
  NBCC John Leonard Prize: Best First Book in Any Genre:
  Redeployment  by  Phil Klay

• 2013

  
  NBCC Award for Fiction:
  Americanah  by  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
  
  NBCC Award for Nonfiction:
  Five Days at Memorial  by  Sheri Fink
  
  NBCC Award for Autobiography:
  Farewell, Fred Voodoo  by  Amy Wilentz
  
  NBCC Award for Poetry:
  Metaphysical Dog  by  Frank Bidart
  
  NBCC John Leonard Prize: Best First Book in Any Genre:
  A Constellation of Vital Phenomena  by  Anthony Marra

• 2012

  
  NBCC Award for Fiction:
  Binocular Vision  by  Edith Pearlman
  
  NBCC Award for Nonfiction:
  Liberty's Exiles  by  Maya Jasanoff
  
  NBCC Award for Biography:
  George F. Kennan  by  John Lewis Gaddis
  
  NBCC Award for Autobiography:
  The Memory Palace  by  Mira Bartok

• 2011

  
  NBCC Award for Fiction:
  A Visit from the Goon Squad  by  Jennifer Egan
  
  NBCC Award for Nonfiction:
  The Warmth of Other Suns  by  Isabel Wilkerson
  
  NBCC Award for Biography:
  How to Live  by  Sarah Bakewell
  
  NBCC Award for Autobiography:
  Half a Life  by  Darin Strauss
  
  NBCC Award for Poetry:
  One With Others  by  C.D. Wright

• 2010

  
  NBCC Award for Fiction:
  Wolf Hall  by  Hilary Mantel
  
  NBCC Award for Nonfiction:
  The Age of Wonder  by  Richard Holmes
  
  NBCC Award for Biography:
  Cheever  by  Blake Bailey
  
  NBCC Award for Autobiography:
  Somewhere Towards the End  by  Diana Athill
  
  NBCC Award for Poetry:
  Versed  by  Rae Armantrout

• 2009

  
  NBCC Award for Fiction:
  2666  by  Roberto Bolano
  
  NBCC Award for Nonfiction:
  The Forever War  by  Dexter Filkins
  
  NBCC Award for Biography:
  The World Is What It Is  by  Patrick French
  
  NBCC Award for Autobiography:
  My Father's Paradise  by  Ariel Sabar

• 2007

  
  NBCC Award for Fiction:
  The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao  by  Junot Diaz
  
  NBCC Award for Nonfiction:
  Medical Apartheid  by  Harriet A. Washington
  
  NBCC Award for Biography:
  Stanley  by  Tim Jeal
  
  NBCC Award for Autobiography:
  Brother, I'm Dying  by  Edwidge Danticat

• 2006

  
  NBCC Award for Fiction:
  The Inheritance of Loss  by  Kiran Desai
  
  NBCC Award for Nonfiction:
  Rough Crossings  by  Simon Schama
  
  NBCC Award for Biography:
  James Tiptree, Jr.  by  Julie Phillips
  
  NBCC Award for Autobiography:
  The Lost  by  Daniel Mendelsohn

• 2005

  
  NBCC Award for Fiction:
  The March  by  E.L. Doctorow
  
  NBCC Award for Nonfiction:
  Voices from Chernobyl  by  Svetlana Alexievich
  
  NBCC Award for Biography:
  American Prometheus  by  Kai Bird, Martin J. Sherwin
  
  NBCC Award for Autobiography:
  Them  by  Francine du Plessix Gray

• 2004

  
  NBCC Award for Fiction:
  Gilead  by  Marilynne Robinson
  
  NBCC Award for Nonfiction:
  The Reformation  by  Diarmaid MacCulloch
  
  NBCC Award for Biography:
  De Kooning  by  Mark Stevens, Annalyn Swan

• 2003

  
  NBCC Award for Fiction:
  The Known World  by  Edward Jones
  
  NBCC Award for Nonfiction:
  Sons of Mississippi  by  Paul Hendrickson
  
  NBCC Award for Biography:
  Khrushchev  by  William Taubman

• 2002

  
  NBCC Award for Fiction:
  Atonement  by  Ian McEwan
  
  NBCC Award for Nonfiction:
  A Problem from Hell  by  Samantha Power
  
  NBCC Award for Biography:
  Charles Darwin  by  Janet Browne