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Novels by Karen Russell and Bryan Washington are among those vying for the award in fiction, while books about Gaza, foster care and women in Russia are up for the nonfiction prize.
Clockwise from top left: Rabih Alameddine; Yiyun Li; Karen Russell; Omar El AkkadCayce Clifford for The New York Times; Hannah Yoon for The New York Times; Annette Hornischer; Kateshia Pendergrass
Oct. 7, 2025, 10:00 a.m. ET
Four of the five finalists for the 2025 National Book Award in fiction, announced on Tuesday, have been previously celebrated by the organization giving the award. They include Rabih Alameddine, a fiction finalist in 2014 who is in contention this year for his novel “The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother).”
Two other finalists — Karen Russell, for “The Antidote,” and Bryan Washington, for the forthcoming “Palaver” — were earlier included on the National Book Foundation’s annual lists of the five most promising novelists under 35. And Megha Majumdar, a finalist for her forthcoming novel, “A Guardian and a Thief,” saw her debut novel, “A Burning,” longlisted in 2020.
The one fiction writer new to National Book Award recognition is also the finalist published by the smallest press in the group: Ethan Rutherford, a debut novelist whose book “North Sun: Or, the Voyage of the Whaleship Esther” was put out by Deep Vellum.
The book foundation announced its 25 finalists for awards across five categories: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature and young people’s literature. The winners will be named at a November ceremony.
Two of the shortlisted novels, by Washington and Alameddine, explore distance and connection between gay men and their mothers. Rutherford’s and Russell’s books are historical fiction, while Majumdar’s novel spends one tense week with an Indian woman trying to emigrate in the face of a climate crisis.
Several of the nonfiction finalists tackle contentious contemporary issues head-on. Omar El Akkad’s “One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This” is about the response of America and Europe to the destruction in Gaza. In “When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World,” Jordan Thomas digs into a destructive six-month fire season sparked by climate change. And in “Wards of the State: The Long Shadow of American Foster Care,” Claudia Rowe calls for reform of the foster care system.
