ShelfEvidentNational Book Award for Fiction — Complete Winners List
76 years of winners · National Book Foundation · Since 1950 · ← Back to award page
| 2025 | Rabih Alameddine | Grove Press | |
| 2024 | Kaveh Akbar | Knopf | |
| 2023 | Justin Torres | Farrar, Straus and Giroux | |
| 2022 | Louise Erdrich | Harper | |
| 2021 | Jason Mott | Dutton | |
| 2020 | Charles Yu | Pantheon Books | |
| 2019 | Susan Choi | Henry Holt and Company | |
| 2018 | Sigrid Nunez | Riverhead Books | |
| 2017 | Jesmyn Ward | Scribner | |
| 2016 | Colson Whitehead | Doubleday | |
| 2015 | Hanya Yanagihara | Doubleday | |
| 2014 | Phil Klay | Penguin Press | |
| 2013 | James McBride | Riverhead Books | |
| 2012 | Louise Erdrich | Harper | |
| 2011 | Jesmyn Ward | Bloomsbury USA | |
| 2010 | Jaimy Gordon | McPherson & Company | |
| 2009 | Colum McCann | Random House | |
| 2008 | Peter Matthiessen | Modern Library | |
| 2007 | Denis Johnson | Farrar, Straus and Giroux | |
| 2006 | Richard Powers | Farrar, Straus and Giroux | |
| 2005 | William T. Vollmann | — | |
| 2004 | Lily Tuck | — | |
| 2003 | Shirley Hazzard | — | |
| 2002 | Julia Glass | — | |
| 2001 | Jonathan Franzen | — | |
| 2000 | Susan Sontag | — | |
| 1999 | Ha Jin | — | |
| 1998 | Alice McDermott | — | |
| 1997 | Charles Frazier | — | |
| 1996 | Andrea Barrett | — | |
| 1995 | Philip Roth | — | |
| 1994 | William Gaddis | — | |
| 1993 | E. Annie Proulx | — | |
| 1992 | Cormac McCarthy | — | |
| 1991 | Norman Rush | — | |
| 1990 | Charles Johnson | — | |
| 1989 | John Casey | — | |
| 1988 | Pete Dexter | — | |
| 1987 | Larry Heinemann | — | |
| 1986 | E. L. Doctorow | — | |
| 1985 | Don DeLillo | — | |
| 1984 | Ellen Gilchrist | — | |
| 1983 | Alice Walker | — | |
| 1982 | John Updike | — | |
| 1981 | Wright Morris | — | |
| 1980 | William Styron | — | |
| 1979 | Tim O'Brien | — | |
| 1978 | Mary Lee Settle | — | |
| 1977 | Wallace Stegner | — | |
| 1976 | William Gaddis | — | |
| 1975 | Robert Stone | — | |
| 1974 | Thomas Pynchon | — | |
| 1973 | John Barth | — | |
| 1972 | Flannery O'Connor | — | |
| 1971 | Saul Bellow | — | |
| 1970 | Joyce Carol Oates | — | |
| 1969 | Jerzy Kosinski | — | |
| 1968 | Thornton Wilder | — | |
| 1967 | Bernard Malamud | — | |
| 1966 | Katherine Anne Porter | — | |
| 1965 | Saul Bellow | — | |
| 1964 | John Updike | — | |
| 1963 | J. F. Powers | — | |
| 1962 | Walker Percy | — | |
| 1961 | Conrad Richter | — | |
| 1960 | Philip Roth | — | |
| 1959 | Bernard Malamud | — | |
| 1958 | John Cheever | — | |
| 1957 | Wright Morris | — | |
| 1956 | John O'Hara | — | |
| 1955 | William Faulkner | — | |
| 1954 | Saul Bellow | — | |
| 1953 | Ralph Ellison | — | |
| 1952 | James Jones | — | |
| 1951 | William Faulkner | — | |
| 1950 | Nelson Algren | — |
