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- National Book Foundation
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- Presented annually by the National Book Foundation since 1950
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- annual, mid-November, evening ET
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Reigning winners
Fiction · 2025
- Rabih Alameddine — The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) source 1 · source 2
| Year | Fiction |
|---|---|
| 2025 | Rabih Alameddine — The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) |
| 2023 | Justin Torres — Blackouts |
| 2022 | Tess Gunty — The Rabbit Hutch |
| 2021 | Jason Mott — Hell of a Book |
| 2019 | Susan Choi — Trust Exercise |
| 2016 | Colson Whitehead — The Underground Railroad |
| 2015 | Adam Johnson — Fortune Smiles: Stories |
| 2014 | Phil Klay — Redeployment |
| 2013 | James McBride — The Good Lord Bird |
| 2012 | Louise Erdrich — The Round House |
| 2011 | Jesmyn Ward — Salvage the Bones |
| 2010 | Jaimy Gordon — Lord of Misrule |
| 2009 | Colum McCann — Let the Great World Spin |
| 2007 | Denis Johnson — Tree of Smoke |
| 2006 | Richard Powers — The Echo Maker |
| 2003 | Shirley Hazzard — The Great Fire |
| 2002 | Julia Glass — Three Junes |
| 2001 | Jonathan Franzen — The Corrections |
| 2000 | Susan Sontag — In America |
| 1998 | Alice McDermott — Charming Billy |
| 1997 | Charles Frazier — Cold Mountain |
| 1996 | Andrea Barrett — Ship Fever and Other Stories |
| 1995 | Philip Roth — Sabbath's Theater |
| 1994 | William Gaddis — A Frolic of His Own |
| 1993 | Annie Proulx — Shipping News |
| 1992 | Cormac McCarthy — All the Pretty Horses |
| 1991 | Norman Rush — Mating |
| 1990 | Charles Johnson — Middle Passage |
| 1989 | John Casey — Spartina |
| 1988 | Pete Dexter — Paris Trout |
| 1987 | Larry Heinemann — Paco's Story |
| 1986 | E. L. Doctorow — World's Fair |
| 1985 | Don DeLillo — White Noise |
| 1984 | Ellen Gilchrist — Victory over Japan: A Book of Stories |
| 1978 | Mary Lee Settle — Blood Tie |
| 1976 | William Gaddis — JR |
| 1974 | Isaac Bashevis Singer — A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories Thomas Pynchon — Gravity's Rainbow |
| 1971 | Saul Bellow — Mr. Sammler's Planet |
| 1969 | Jerzy Kosinski — Steps |
| 1965 | Saul Bellow — Herzog |
| 1964 | John Updike — The Centaur |
| 1963 | J. F. Powers — Morte D'Urban |
| 1961 | Conrad Richter — The Waters of Kronos |
| 1960 | Philip Roth — Goodbye, Columbus |
| 1958 | John Cheever — The Wapshot Chronicle |
| 1955 | William Faulkner — A Fable |
| 1954 | Saul Bellow — The Adventures of Augie March |