The National Book Critics Circle has revealed the longlists for its 2025 awards in fiction and criticism.
Nobel laureate Han Kang made the fiction longlist for We Do Not Part, translated by e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris, which was also longlisted for the National Book Award. It is one of two books not originally written in English nominated for this year’s prize, alongside On the Calculation of Volume (Book III), written by Solvej Balle and translated by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell.
Angela Flournoy’s The Wilderness, a Kirkus Prize finalist, made the longlist, as well as Karen Russell’s The Antidote; Katie Kitamura’s Audition; Lily King’s Heart the Lover; Ayşegül Savaş’ Long Distance; Caren Beilin’s Sea, Poison; Madeleine Thien’s The Book of Records, and Tash Aw’s The South.
In criticism, Omar El Akkad was longlisted for his National Book Award–winning One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, as was Viet Thanh Nguyen for To Save and To Destroy.
Also making the criticism longlist were Authority by Andrea Long Chu; Algorithm of the Night: Film Writing, 2019-2025 by A.S. Hamrah; Erik Satie Three Piece Suite by Ian Penman; Dismantling the Master’s Clock: On Race, Space, and Time by Rasheedah Phillips; Greyhound by Joanna Pocock; Hayek’s Bastards: Race, Gold, IQ, and the Capitalism of the Far Right by Quinn Slobodian; Medium Hot: Images in the Age of Heat by Hito Steyerl; and Exophony: Voyages Outside the Mother Tongue, written by Yoko Tawada and translated by Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda.
The National Book Critics Circle Awards are voted on by the 24 members of the organization’s board. The shortlists for the awards will be revealed next month, with the winners announced at a ceremony in New York on March 26, 2026.
Tom Beer is the editor-in-chief.
