These authors and books have won the annual National Book Awards, awarded to American authors by the National Book Foundation based in the United States.

History of categories

The National Book Awards were first awarded to four 1935 publications in May 1936. Contrary to that historical fact, the National Book Foundation currently recognizes only a history of purely literary awards that begins in 1950. The pre-war awards and the 1980 to 1983 graphics awards are covered below following the main list of current award categories. There have been five award categories since 2018: Fiction, Non-fiction, Poetry, Young People's Literature, and Translated Literature. The main list below is organized by the current award categories and by year. The categories' winners are selected from hundreds of preliminary nominees – "from 150 titles (Translated Literature) to upwards of 600 titles (Nonfiction)." Since 2013, a long list of ten entries for each of the categories has been selected and announced in September, followed by five finalists for each category in October, with the year's winners announced in November. Repeat winners and split awards are covered at the bottom of the page.

Current award categories

This section covers awards starting in 1950 in the five current categories as defined by their names. Some awards in "previous categories" may have been equivalent except in name.

Fiction

General fiction for adult readers is a National Book Award category that has been continuous since 1950, with multiple awards for a few years beginning 1980. From 1935 to 1941, there were six annual awards for novels or general fiction and the "Bookseller Discovery", the "Most Original Book"; both awards were sometimes given to a novel. Dozens of new categories were introduced in 1980, including "General fiction", hardcover and paperback, which are both listed here. The comprehensive "Fiction" genre and hard-or-soft format were both restored three years later. The comprehensive "Fiction" category returned in 1984.

Nonfiction

General nonfiction for adult readers is a National Book Award category continuous only from 1984, when the general award was restored after two decades of awards in several nonfiction categories. From 1935 to 1941 there were six annual awards for general nonfiction, two for biography, and the Bookseller Discovery or Most Original Book was sometimes nonfiction. Multiple nonfiction categories were introduced in 1964, initially Arts and Letters; History and (Auto)Biography; and Science, Philosophy and Religion. See also Contemporary and General Nonfiction. The comprehensive "Nonfiction" genre was restored twenty years later.

Poetry

Major reorganization in 1984 eliminated the 30-year-old Poetry award along with dozens of younger ones. Poetry alone was restored seven years later.

Young People's Literature

Award for Translated Literature

An award for translated works was first established in 1967. The standard $1000 cash prize was initially provided by the National Translation Center, which had been founded at the University of Texas at Austin in 1965 with a grant from the Ford Foundation. The first translation award ran from 1967 to 1983 and was for fiction only; the translated author could be living or dead. The National Book Award for Translated Literature was inaugurated in 2018 for fiction or non-fiction, where both author and translator were alive at the beginning of the awards cycle.

Children's books

Nonfiction subcategories 1964 to 1983

This section covers awards from 1964 to 1983 in categories that differ from the "current categories" in name. Some of them were substantially equivalent to current categories.

Arts and Letters

History and (Auto)biography

Science, Philosophy and Religion

Contemporary

General Nonfiction

Other Fiction 1980 to 1985

Miscellaneous

1935 to 1941

The first National Book Awards were presented in May 1936 at the annual convention of the American Booksellers Association to four 1935 books selected by its members. Subsequently, the awards were announced mid-February to March 1 and presented at the convention. For 1937 books there were ballots from 319 stores, about three times as many as for 1935. There had been 600 ABA members in 1936. The "Most Distinguished" Nonfiction, Biography, and Novel (for 1935 and 1936) were reduced to two and termed "Favorite" Nonfiction and Fiction beginning 1937. Master of ceremonies Clifton Fadiman declined to consider the Pulitzer Prizes (not yet announced in February 1938) as potential ratifications. "Unlike the Pulitzer Prize committee, the booksellers merely vote for their favorite books. They do not say it is the best book or the one that will elevate the standard of manhood or womanhood. Twenty years from now we can decide which are the masterpieces. This year we can only decide which books we enjoyed reading the most." The Bookseller Discovery officially recognized "outstanding merit which failed to receive adequate sales and recognition" The award stood alone for 1941 and the New York Times frankly called it "a sort of consolation prize that the booksellers hope will draw attention to his work". Authors and publishers outside the United States were eligible and there were several winners by non-U.S. authors (at least Lofts, Curie, de Saint-Exupéry, Du Maurier, and Llewellyn). The Bookseller Discovery and the general awards for fiction and non-fiction were conferred six times in seven years, the Most Original Book five times, and the biography award in the first two years only. Dates are years of publication.

Graphics awards

The "Academy Awards model" (Oscars) was introduced in 1980 under the name TABA, The American Book Awards. The program expanded from seven literary awards to 28 literary and 6 graphics awards. After 1983, with 19 literary and 8 graphics awards, the Awards practically went out of business, to be restored in 1984 with a program of three literary awards. Since 1988 the Awards have been under the care of the National Book Foundation which does not recognize the graphics awards. Herbert Mitgang's report on the inaugural TABA begins thus: "Thirty-four hardcover and paperback books, many of which nobody had heard of before, were named winners during a generally ragged presentation of the first American Book Awards in a ceremony at the Seventh Regiment Armory last night. The event was designed to resemble Hollywood's Oscars, but instead there was little glamour. All the winners were barred from accepting their awards, and most did not attend."

Repeat winners

Books

At least three books have won two National Book Awards. Dates are award years.

Authors

At least three authors have won three awards: Saul Bellow with three Fiction awards; Peter Matthiessen with two awards for The Snow Leopard (above) and the 2008 Fiction award for Shadow Country; Lewis Thomas with two awards for The Lives of a Cell (above) and the 1981 Science paperback award for The Medusa and the Snail. These three authors and numerous others have written two award-winning books. Dates are award years.

"Children's" and "Young People's" categories

"Fiction"

"Fiction" and another category

"Nonfiction" and nonfiction subcategories

"Poetry"

Split awards

The Translation award was split six times during its 1967 to 1983 history, once split three ways. Twelve other awards were split, all during that period. Four of the ten awards were split in 1974, including the three-way split in Translation. That year the Awards practically went out of business. In 1975 there was no sponsor. A temporary administrator, the Committee on Awards Policy, "begged" judges not to split awards, yet three of ten awards were split. William Cole explained this in a New York Times column pessimistically entitled "The Last of the National Book Awards" but the Awards were "saved" by the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1976. Split awards returned with a 1980 reorganization on Academy Awards lines (under the ambiguous name "American Book Awards" for a few years). From 1980 to 1983 there were not only split awards but more than twenty award categories annually; there were graphics awards (or "non-literary awards") and dual awards for hardcover and paperback books, both unique to the period. In 1983 the awards again went out of business, and they were not saved for 1983 publications (January to October). The 1984 reorganization prohibited split awards as it trimmed the award categories from 27 to three.