National Book Critics Circle Award for Memoir and Autobiography explained

The National Book Critics Circle Award for Memoir and Autobiography, established in 2005, is an annual American literary award presented by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English."^[1] Awards are presented annually to books published in the U.S. during the preceding calendar year in six categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Memoir/Autobiography, Biography, and Criticism. Between 1983 and 2004, the award was presented jointly with biography.

Books previously published in English are not eligible, such as re-issues and paperback editions. They do consider "translations, short story and essay collections, self published books, and any titles that fall under the general categories."^[2]

The judges are the volunteer directors of the NBCC who are 24 members serving rotating three-year terms, with eight elected annually by the voting members, namely "professional book review editors and book reviewers."^[3] Winners of the awards are announced each year at the NBCC awards ceremony in conjunction with the yearly membership meeting, which takes place in March.

Recipients

National Book Critics Circle Award for Memoir and Autobiography winners and finalists!Year!Author!Title!Result!Ref.

1983		Minor Characters	Winner
1984		Dostoevsky: The Years of Ordeal, 1850–1859	Winner
1985		Henry James: A Life	Winner
1986		The Life of Langston Hughes, Vol. I: 1902-1941	Winner
1987		Chaucer: His Life, His Works, His World	Winner
1988		Oscar Wilde	Winner
1989		A First-Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Roosevelt	Winner
1990		Means of Ascent: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Vol. II	Winner
1991			Winner
1992		Writing Dangerously: Mary McCarthy and Her World	Winner
1993		Genet	Winner
1994		Shot in the Heart	Winner
1995		Savage Art: A Biography of Jim Thompson	Winner
1996		Angela's Ashes	Winner
1997		Ernie Pyle's War: America's Eyewitness to World War II	Winner
1998		A Beautiful Mind	Winner
1999			Winner
2000		Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan	Winner
2001		Boswell's Presumptuous Task: The Making of the Life of Dr.Johnson	Winner
2002		Charles Darwin: The Power of Place, Vol. II	Winner
2003			Winner
2004	and Annalyn Swan		Winner
2005		Them: A Memoir of Parents	Winner
2006			Winner
2007		Brother, I'm Dying	Winner	^[4] ^[5] ^[6]
		Heart Like Water: Surviving Katrina and Life in Its Disaster Zone	Finalist
		Russian Diary: A Journalist's Final Account of Life, Corruption and Death in Putin's Russia
		The Journals of Joyce Carol Oates, 1973–1982
		Writing in an Age of Silence
2008		My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq	Winner	^[7]
		The Bishop's Daughter	Finalist	^[8]
		The Eaves of Heaven
		The House on Sugar Beach
		Why I Came West
2009		Somewhere Towards the End	Winner	^[9] ^[10] ^[11]
		City Boy	Finalist
		Enemies of the People: My Family's Journey to America
		Lit
		Live Through This: A Mother's Memoir of Runaway Daughters and Reclaimed Love
2010		Half a Life	Winner	^[12] ^[13]
		Crossing Mandelbaum Gate Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis, 1956-1978	Finalist
		Hiroshima in the Morning
		Hitch-22: A Memoir
		Just Kids
		The Autobiography of an Execution
2011		The Memory Palace	Winner	^[14] ^[15]
		Harlem is Nowhere: A Journey to the Mecca of Black America	Finalist	^[16]
		It Calls You Back: An Odyssey through Love, Addiction, Revolutions, and Healing
		One Hundred Names for Love: A Stroke, a Marriage, and the Language of Healing
		Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War
2012		Swimming Studies	Winner	^[17] ^[18]
		House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East	Finalist	^[19] ^[20]
		In the House of the Interpreter
		My Poets
		The Distance Between Us
2013		Farewell, Fred Voodoo: A Letter From Haiti	Winner	^[21] ^[22]
		Men We Reaped	Finalist	^[23]
		The Book of My Lives
		The Faraway Nearby
		Wave
2014		Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?	Winner	^[24] ^[25]
		Little Failure	Finalist	^[26]
		The Other Side
		The Splendid Things We Planned: A Family Portrait
		There Was and There Was Not
2015			Winner	^[27]
		Bettyville	Finalist
		H is for Hawk
		The Light of the World
		The Odd Woman and the City
2016		Lab Girl	Winner	^[28]
		In Gratitude	Finalist
		The Iceberg
		The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father
2017			Winner	^[29] ^[30] ^[31]
		Admissions: Life as a Brain Surgeon	Finalist	^[32]
		The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir
		The Girl From the Metropol Hotel: Growing Up in Communist Russia
2018		Belonging: A German Reckons With History and Home	Winner	^[33] ^[34] ^[35] ^[36]
		All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir	Finalist
		Old in Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over
		What Drowns the Flowers in Your Mouth: A Memoir of Brotherhood
2019			Winner	^[37] ^[38]
			Finalist
		Five Days Gone: The Mystery of My Mother's Disappearance as a Child
		Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations
		Sounds Like Titanic: A Memoir
2020			Winner	^[39] ^[40] ^[41]
		Golem Girl	Finalist
		Home Baked: My Mom, Marijuana, and the Stoning of San Francisco
		The Dragons, The Giant, The Women
		This Is Major: Notes on Diana Ross, Dark Girls, and Being Dope
2021			Winner	^[42]
		A Farewell To Gabo And Mercedes: A Son's Memoir of Gabriel García Márquez and Mercedes Barcha	Finalist	^[43] ^[44] ^[45]
		A Ghost in the Throat
		A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance
		Concepcion: An Immigrant Family's Fortunes
2022		Stay True: A Memoir	Winner	^[46]
		Linea Nigra: An Essay on Pregnancy and Earthquakes	Finalist
		A Line in the World: A Year on the North Sea Coast
		Come Back in September: A Literary Education on West Sixty-Seventh Street, Manhattan
		The Man Who Could Move Clouds: A Memoir
2023		How to Say Babylon: A Memoir	Winner	^[47]
		I Would Meet You Anywhere: A Memoir	Finalist
		Secret Harvests: A Hidden Story of Separation and the Resilience of a Family Farm
		Rotten Evidence: Reading and Writing in an Egyptian Prison
		Story of a Poem: A Memoir

See also

• Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award
• John Leonard Prize
• National Book Critics Circle Awards
• National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography
• National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism
• National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction
• National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction
• National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry
• Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing

External links

• Official website

Notes and References

1. Web site: How We Pick Our Awards. https://web.archive.org/web/20200608004545/https://www.bookcritics.org/awards/selection/. dead. June 8, 2020. 2022-01-24. National Book Critics Circle. en-US.
2. Web site: Frequently Asked Questions. 2022-01-24. National Book Critics Circle. en-US.
3. Web site: Membership. 2022-01-24. National Book Critics Circle. en-US.
4. Web site: 2008-03-07. National Book Critics Circle Announces 2007 Award Winners. 2022-01-25. the American Booksellers Association.
5. Web site: 2008-03-07. 2007 NBCC Winners Announced. 2022-01-25. National Book Critics Circle. en-US.
6. News: Rich. Motoko. 2008-03-07. National Book Critics Circle Awards. en-US. The New York Times. 2022-01-25. 0362-4331.
7. Web site: 2008. 2022-01-25. National Book Critics Circle. en-US.
8. Web site: Magee. C. Max. 2009-01-25. 2008 National Book Critics Circle Finalists Announced. 2022-01-25. The Millions. en-US.
9. Web site: 2009. 2022-01-25. National Book Critics Circle. en-US.
10. Web site: 2010-03-10. 2009 National Book Critics Circle Awards Ceremony. 2022-01-25. C-SPAN. en-us.
11. Web site: Reid. Calvin. 2010-03-12. Mantel, Holmes, Biss Among 2009 National Book Critics Circle Winners. 2022-01-25. PublishersWeekly.com. en.
12. Web site: 2010. 2022-01-25. National Book Critics Circle. en-US.
13. Web site: Magee. C. Max. 2011-03-11. 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award Winners Announced. 2022-01-25. The Millions. en-US.
14. Web site: 2011. 2022-01-25. National Book Critics Circle. en-US.
15. Web site: The National Book Critics Circle Awards 2011. 2022-01-25. Book Reporter.
16. Web site: Magee. C. Max. 2012-01-22. 2011 National Book Critics Circle Award Finalists Announced. 2022-01-25. The Millions. en-US.
17. Web site: 2012. 2022-01-25. National Book Critics Circle. en-US.
18. Web site: Habash. Gabe. 2013-02-28. 2012 National Book Critics Circle Awards Go to 'Billy Lynn,' Solomon, Caro. 2022-01-25. PublishersWeekly.com. en.
19. Web site: 2013-01-14. National Book Critics Awards Shortlist Announced. 2022-01-25. HuffPost. en.
20. Web site: 2013-01-14. 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award Finalists Announced. 2022-01-25. The Millions. en-US.
21. Web site: 2013. 2022-01-25. National Book Critics Circle. en-US.
22. Web site: Magee. C. Max. 2014-03-13. 2013 National Book Critics Circle Award Winners Announced. 2022-01-25. The Millions. en-US.
23. Web site: 2014-01-14. 2013 National Book Critics Circle Award Finalists Announced. 2022-01-25. The Millions. en-US.
24. Web site: 2014. 2022-01-25. National Book Critics Circle. en-US.
25. Web site: Schaub. Michael. 2014 National Book Critics Circle Award winners announced. 2022-01-24. Los Angeles Times. 13 March 2015 .
26. Web site: Schaub. Michael. 2015-01-19. National Book Critics Circle announces 2014 awards finalists. 2022-01-24. Los Angeles Times.
27. Web site: 2015. 2022-01-25. National Book Critics Circle. en-US.
28. Web site: 2016. 2022-01-25. National Book Critics Circle. en-US.
29. Web site: 2017. 2022-01-25. National Book Critics Circle. en-US.
30. Web site: 2018-03-15. 2017 National Book Critics Circle Award Winners. 2022-01-25. The Millions. en-US.
31. Web site: Colyard. K. W.. 2018-03-16. The National Book Critics Circle Award Winners For 2017 Are All Women & You'll Want To Read All Their Books. 2022-01-25. Bustle. en.
32. Web site: Temple. Emily. 2018-01-22. Here are the Finalists for the 2017 National Book Critics Circle Awards. 2022-01-25. Literary Hub. en-US.
33. Web site: 2018. 2022-01-25. National Book Critics Circle. en-US.
34. Web site: Squires. Bethy. 2019-03-14. National Book Critics Circle Winners Include New York's Christopher Bonanos. 2022-01-25. Vulture. en-us.
35. Web site: van Koeverden. Jane. 2019-03-15. Anna Burns, Zadie Smith among 2018 National Book Critics Circle Award winners. 2022-01-24. CBC Books.
36. Web site: 2019-03-15. Congratulations to the 2019 National Book Critics Circle Award Winners. 2022-01-25. Book Marks. en-US.
37. Web site: 2019. 2022-01-25. National Book Critics Circle. en-US.
38. Web site: Reiter. Amy. 2020-03-13. National Book Critics Circle Announces 2019 Awards. 2022-01-25. Kirkus Reviews. en.
39. Web site: Beer. Tom. 2021-03-25. National Book Critics Circle Presents Awards. 2022-01-25. Kirkus Reviews. en.
40. Web site: 2020. 2022-01-25. National Book Critics Circle. en-US.
41. Web site: National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction Winners. 2022-01-25. Powell's Books.
42. Web site: Anthony Veasna So, Diane Seuss among National Book Critics Circle Award winners . . 18 March 2022 .
43. Web site: Bancroft. Colette. 2022-01-21. National Book Critics Circle announces awards finalists. 2022-01-25. Tampa Bay Times. en.
44. Web site: Beer. Tom. 2022-01-20. Finalists for the 2022 NBCC Awards Are Announced. 2022-01-25. Kirkus Reviews. en.
45. Web site: 2022-01-21. 2021 National Book Critics Circle Awards. 2022-01-25. Locus Online. en-US.
46. Web site: 2022. 2024-09-19. National Book Critics Circle. en-US.
47. Web site: 2023. 2024-09-19. National Book Critics Circle. en-US.