Academics Are Among National Book Award Nominees

Today’s announcement of the NBA shortlist saw academics in multiple categories for the awards, whose winners will be announced on November 16.

In Nonfiction

Stephen Greenblatt, a professor of the humanities at Harvard University, for The Swerve: How the World Became Modern (W.W. Norton).

The late Manning Marable, who was a professor of African-American studies and public affairs at Columbia University, for Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention (Viking)

Lauren Redniss, an assistant professor of illustration at Parsons the New School for Design, for Radioactive: Marie and Pierre Curie, a Tale of Love and Fallout (It Books/HarperCollins).

In Poetry

Nikky Finney, a professor of creative writing at the University of Kentucky, for Head Off & Split (Triquarterly/Northwestern University Press).

Yusef Komunyakaa, a professor of English at New York University, for The Chameleon Couch (Farrar, Straus and Giroux).

Carl Phillips, a professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis, for Double Shadow (Farrar, Straus and Giroux).

Bruce Smith, a professor of English and creative writing at Syracuse University, for Devotions (University of Chicago Press).

In Fiction:

Jesmyn Ward, an assistant professor in creative writing at the University of South Alabama, for Salvage the Bones (Bloomsbury).

For a full list of nominees, visit the NBA.