National Book Award Finalists Head Toward Nov. 18 Ceremony at Cipriani Wall Street

The 77th National Book Awards will crown its winners on Nov. 18 at Cipriani Wall Street, with the ceremony streamed live beginning at 8 p.m. ET and a finalists' reading open to the public the night before at NYU Skirball.

Twenty-five finalists, five in each of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature and young people's literature, were announced in early October. The fiction category includes Hannah Lillith Assadi, Edwidge Danticat, Julián Delgado Lopera, Valeria Luiselli and Morgan Thomas, a slate the National Book Foundation has highlighted for its range of small-press and university-press titles alongside major publishers. Winners in each category receive $10,000 and a bronze medal; the four finalists who don't win still receive $1,000 and a medal each.

The ceremony caps a month in which the longlists and finalist announcements have driven renewed attention to backlist sales for nominated authors, a pattern publishers describe as the award's most reliable commercial effect regardless of who ultimately wins. This year's judging panels, drawn from writers, critics and booksellers, will announce winners category by category over the course of the evening, with the fiction prize traditionally closing the program.