2003 National Book Awards Finalists Announced

The 20 finalists for the National Book Foundation's 2003 National Book Awards (NBA) were announced on Wednesday, October 15. The winners will be announced on Wednesday, November 19, at a ceremony hosted by novelist Walter Mosley at the New York Marriott Marquis Hotel in midtown Manhattan.

The awards are presented annually in four categories -- fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and young people's literature. To be eligible for the 2003 National Book Awards, a book must have been published in the U.S. between December 1, 2002, and November 30, 2003, and must have been written by a U.S. citizen.

Three of the five fiction finalists for the NBA were selected by independent booksellers as Book Sense 76 picks earlier in the year: T.C. Boyle's, Drop City, a March/April 2003 Book Sense 76 pick; Edward P. Jones,' The Known World, a September/October 2003 Book Sense 76 pick; and Marianne Wiggins' Evidence of Things Unseen, a July/August 2003 Book Sense 76 pick.

In addition, two of the nonfiction finalists were March/April Book Sense 76 picks -- Carlos Eire's Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy and Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America -- and, in the young people's literature category, Richard Peck's The River Between Us appears on the Autumn 2003 Children's Book Sense 76.

"A strong sense of place … characterizes the work of this year's finalists, with settings that include the Russian Gulag, Havana in the pre-revolutionary 1950s, the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, a century of summers on Cape Cod, a Sonoma Valley commune, Philadelphia during the 1793 yellow fever epidemic, and a Los Angeles traffic jam," according to a statement from the National Book Foundation. "Four of the books -- two novels, one biography, and a historical novel for young people -- explore complex issues of race in America."

The finalists are:

FICTION

• T.C. Boyle, Drop City (Viking/Penguin USA), a March/April 2003 Book Sense 76 Pick
  
• Shirley Hazzard, The Great Fire (FSG)
  
• Edward P. Jones, The Known World (Amistad Press/HarperCollins), a September/October 2003 Book Sense 76 Pick
  
• Scott Spencer, A Ship Made of Paper (Ecco/HarperCollins)
  
• Marianne Wiggins, Evidence of Things Unseen (S&S), a July/August 2003 Book Sense 76 Pick

NONFICTION

• Anne Applebaum, Gulag: A History (Doubleday/Random House)
  
• George Howe Colt, The Big House: A Century in the Life of an American Summer Home (Scribner/S&S)
  
• John D'Emilio, Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin (Free Press/S&S)
  
• Carlos Eire, Waiting for Snow in Havana: Confessions of a Cuban Boy (Free Press/S&S), a March/April 2003 Book Sense 76 Pick
  
• Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America (Crown/Random House), a March/April 2003 Book Sense 76 Pick

POETRY

• Carol Muske-Dukes, Sparrow (Random House)
  
• Charles Simic, The Voice at 3:00 A.M.: Selected Late and New Poems (Harcourt)
  
• Louis Simpson, The Owner of the House: New Collected Poems 1940-2001 (Boa Editions)
  
• C.K. Williams, The Singing: Poems (FSG)
  
• Kevin Young, Jelly Roll: A Blues (Knopf/Random House)

YOUNG PEOPLE'S LITERATURE

• Paul Fleischman, Breakout (Cricket Books/Carus Publishing)
  
• Polly Horvath, The Canning Season (FSG)
  
• Jim Murphy, An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 (Clarion Books/Houghton Mifflin)
  
• Richard Peck, The River Between Us (Dial Books/Penguin USA) an Autumn 2003 Children's 76 Pick
  
• Jacqueline Woodson, Locomotion (G.P. Putnam's Son's/Penguin USA)
  

Each of the finalists will receive a bronze medallion and a $1,000 cash award from the National Book Foundation. In addition, the winners in each category will receive a $10,000 cash award and a bronze statue.

Also, at the November ceremony, the National Book Foundation will present its 2003 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters to Stephen King.