The literary award season flowered into full view this week and one of its brightest blooms popped up in Tucson.
Local novelist Lydia Millet was one of 10 authors named semifinalists for this year’s National Book Award in fiction. Her latest book is “A Children’s Bible,” published by W.W. Norton in May. It explores modern interpretations of scenes from the Bible.
Lydia Millet
It is Millet’s second appearance on the National Book Award long list. Her previous novel, “Sweet Lamb of Heaven,” was also a semifinalist.
The National Book Award is America’s top literary honor. Each year it rewards top authors in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, young people’s literature, and translations.
Semifinalists were announced in all categories this week. Three have appeared at the Tucson Festival of Books. In addition to Millet, Natalie Diaz, a semifinalist in poetry, was featured at the Tucson festival in 2012. John Rocco, whose is on the long list in young people’s literature, was here in 2015.
The festival is known for presenting the nation’s most honored authors. It has become a point of emphasis, and pride. Interestingly, this trend emerged almost inadvertently.
“It started in kind of an accidental way,” former Book and Author Committee chair Helene Woodhams recalled.
“Four or five years ago, we had already invited a bunch of authors who, later, were nominated for NBAs. When we invited the president of the National Book Foundation to moderate a couple of those sessions, Lisa Lucas came, too. It has grown into a nice relationship.”
Indeed, 27 National Book Award finalists have attended the festival in the last five years.
Finalists for this year’s National Book Awards will be announced next month, with winners coming in November.
Finalists for this year’s Booker Prize were also announced this week. Four of the six are Americans. Three of them are first-time writers.
National Book Award semifinalists
FICTION
- Rumaan Alam, “Leave the World Behind”
- Christopher Beha, “The Index of Self-Destructive Acts”
- Brit Bennett, “The Vanishing Half”
- Randall Kenan, “If I had Two Wings”
- Megha Majumdar, “A Burning”
- Lydia Millet, “A Children’s Bible”
- Deesha Philyaw, “The Secret Lives of Church Ladies”
- Douglas Stuart, “Shuggie Bain”
- Vanessa Veselka, “The Great Offshore Grounds”
- Charles Yu, “Interior Chinatown”
NONFICTION
- Michelle Bowdler, “Is Rape a Crime?”
- Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, “The Undocumented Americans”
- Jill Lepore, “If Then”
- Les Payne and Tamara Payne, “The Dead Are Arising”
- Claudio Saunt, “Unworthy Republic”
- Jenn Shapland, “My Autobiography of Carson McCullers”
- Jonathan C. Slaght, “ Owls of the Eastern Ice”
- Jerald Walker, “How to Make a Slave and Other Essays”
- Frank B. Wilderson III, “Afropessimist”
- Isabel Wilkerson, “Caste”
POETRY
- Rick Barot, “The Galleons”
- Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, “A Tretise on Stars
- Lillian-Yvonne Bertram, “Travesty Generation”
- Tommye Blount, “Fantasia for the Man in Blue”
- Victoria Chang, “Obit”
- Don Mee Choi, “DMZ Colony”
- Anthony Cody, “Borderland Apocrypha”
- Eduardo C. Corral, “Guillotine”
- Natalie Diaz, “Postcolonial Love Poem”
- Honoree Fanonne Jeffers, “The Age of Phillis”
YOUNG PEOPLE’S LITERATURE
- Kacen Callender, “King and the Dragonflies”
- Traci Chee, “We Are Not Free”
- Evette Dionne, “Lifting as We Climb”
- Eric Gansworth, “Apple (Skin to the Core)”
- Candice Iloh, “Every Body Looking”
- Victoria Jamieson & Omar Mohamed, “When Stars Are Scattered”
- Marcella Pixley, “Trowbridge Road”
- John Rocco, “How We Got to the Moon”
- Gavriel Savit, “The Way Back”
- Aiden Thomas, “Cemetery Boys”
Booker Prize finalists
- Diane Cook, “The New Wilderness”
- Tsitsi Dangarembga, “The Mournable Body”
- Avni Doshi, “Burnt Sugar”
- Maaza Mengiste, “The Shadow King”
- Douglas Stuart, “Shuggie Bain”
- Brandon Taylor, “Real Life”
