US National Book Awards 2026: Five longlisted titles to read now

The United States' National Book Foundation has unveiled the 2026 longlists for fiction, non-fiction, poetry, translated literature, and young people's literature. The ceremony, held in New York on November 18, will honor Salman Rushdie with the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Rushdie's memoir, Knife, which features a plot based on a 2022 attack, received a 2024 finalist honor. Here are five longlisted titles to explore, one from each category.

Marlon James, the Booker Prize winner, offers "The Disappearers," a novel set in 1988 where eight men rehearse Jamaica's first gay play. A homophobic mob subsequently kills one of them, leading a survivor to investigate the fates of the others. James bases the story on an unproven violent incident.

Colin Asher's "The Midnight Special: The Secret Prison History of American Music" delves into how incarceration influenced famous musicians like Lead Belly, Elmo Hope, Johnny Cash, Ike White, and Tupac Shakur. Asher examines if prisons fostered creativity or suppressed it, highlighting how white artists profited from their notoriety while Black artists faced silencing.

Poet Victoria Chang, who has been longlisted for the National Book Award, won for her anthology "Tree of Knowledge." The long poem "Eureka" confronts the expulsion of Chinese Americans from a California town in 1885, mirroring the creative styles of painters Picasso, Joan Mitchell, and Hilma af Klint.

Ping Lu's "To the East of the East" explores a Taiwanese woman's journey to Beijing after her husband's disappearance during a business deal. As she awaits answers, she becomes involved with a self-proclaimed human rights activist and reflects on her husband's story through letters from him.

"Life on the Moon" by Matthew Swanson and Robbi Behr, a young people's literature nominee, tells the story of 12-year-old Leo. Leo joins the first Moon colony with his family, but his father is sent on a mission and never returns. Authorities claim the mission never happened, accusing Leo's father of desertion. Leo explores the colony, discovering strange creatures, behaviors, and beliefs.