Marlon James fantasy novel "Black Leopard, Red Wolf," Laila Lalami's immigrant tale "The Other Americans" and Jason Reynolds' neighborhood story "Look Both Ways" are among this year's finalists for the 70th annual National Book Awards. Five nominees were announced in each of five categories, ranging from fiction to translation to young people's literature. None of the finalists has ever won a competitive National Book Award and only four have received any kind of recognition, including poetry nominee Toi Derricotte, a recipient of an honorary National Book Award in 2016 for co-founding the poetry center Cave Canem. The awards are presented by the National Book Foundation. In poetry, finalists besides Derricotte's "I: New and Selected Poems" were Jericho Brown's "The Tradition," Ilya Kaminsky's "Deaf Republic," Carmen Giménez Smith's "Be Recorder" and Arthur Sze's "Sight Lines."

Source: ABC News October 08, 2019 14:37 UTC