2026 National Book Awards Fiction LonglistLike this list

10 items

• Paradiso 17

  a Novel

  Assadi, Hannah Lillith

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  All his life, exile has been the shadow stitched to the sole of Sufien's shoe. Born in Palestine on the precipice of 1948's Nakba, Sufien is forced to leave the only home he's ever known, the one on the hill with a beautiful blue door. This is the…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Dèy

  a Novel

  Danticat, Edwidge, 1969-

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  Can love or family protect us from harm? Does optimism or fear win out in one's heart? Which side will prevail for Magnolia? Pulled between these questions, each of which involves a high-stakes choice--Miami or Haiti, single or married, mortal or…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Python's Kiss

  Erdrich, Louise,

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  Written over the past two decades, Louise Erdrich's magnificent story collection features a range of characters--a tribal newsletter editor whose son tells her a story that nothing in her experience can encompass, immigrant farmers whose tenuous…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Disappearers

  a Novel

  James, Marlon, 1970-

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  From Marlon James, author of the Booker Prize-winning A Brief History of Seven Killings : the electrifying story of the murder of a gay man in 1980s Jamaica and its far-reaching consequences In 1988, eight men in Kingston, Jamaica, begin…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Beginning Middle End

  a Novel

  Luiselli, Valeria, 1983-

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  This story begins when a mother and her daughter take off on a trip. It is a summer of rapidly changing winds, volcanic rumbles, and sudden tempests. They've landed in Sicily, near the ancient ruins where the mother's grandmother worked long ago on…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Renovation

  a Novel

  Orhan, Kenan, 1993-

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  A woman discovers that her bathroom has been remodeled into a prison cell--where she is an unlikely inmate--in this surreal novel of exile, grief, memory, and migration. In Salerno, Italy, Dilara spends her days caring for her aging father and her…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Red Ants: Stories

  Blaeser, Kimberly

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  This bold and genre-defying prose debut by the prizewinning poet incorporates social, historical, and supernatural elements to create a collection that is both contemporary and timeless, communal and deeply intimate Kimberly Blaeser's singular…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Mad Eden

  Thomas, Morgan

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  Ro and Liam live in a ramshackle cabin in a secluded stretch of Florida. Neither their home nor their sometimes-tumultuous relationship is what the world would call perfect, but to Ro--newly diagnosed with autism and working as a patient navigator…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Passengers

  Maksik, Alexander

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  A taut, emotionally gripping, and surprisingly funny novel about a father and daughter stranded in an airport at the end of the world.  Ivan is a solitary man in his seventies, set in his ways and haunted by the failures of his past. His smart and…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Pretend You're Dead and I Carry You

  Delgado Lopera, Julian,

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  It is a known fact that the queens who refuse their destiny are haunted. Rejection turns itself inward, a bullet to the heart of said queen, and unleashes, per Travesti Lore, a river of curses. Cloistered in a dreary Bogotá apartment, Ignacio's…Read moreRead more of this annotation