Living Canon

National Book Award 1955: Complete list of winners

The 1955 National Book Award marked a triumphant year for American literature, with two towering figures claiming the prize in their respective categories. William Faulkner’s A Fable took the fiction award, cementing the Mississippi author’s status as one of the nation’s most significant novelists, while Wallace Stevens’ The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens honored the insurance executive-turned-modernist poet whose dense, philosophical verses had long captivated serious readers. These weren’t merely recognitions of established talent—they were affirmations that the National Book Award, still in its relative youth as a prestigious literary honor, had the credibility to celebrate the work that truly mattered in American letters.

What made this year particularly resonant was the award’s clear preference for complex, challenging work. Faulkner’s experimental Fable, with its intricate narrative structure and philosophical depth, represented the kind of ambitious fiction that demanded reader engagement rather than easy accessibility. Meanwhile, Stevens’ collected poems—finally bringing together his elliptical, intellectually rigorous body of work—represented poetry at its most uncompromising. The 1955 National Book Award winners reflected an American literary establishment confident enough to honor difficulty and innovation, a quality that would define the award’s enduring prestige throughout the decades to come.

Below you’ll find the complete list of the 1955 National Book Award winners across all categories:

Fiction

Poetry