National Book Award 1977: Complete list of winners

The 1977 National Book Award recognized two distinctly different but equally compelling achievements in American literature. Richard Eberhart’s Collected Poems, 1930–1976: Including 43 New Poems claimed the poetry prize, honoring a career spanning nearly half a century. At the time of the award, Eberhart was already an established voice in American verse, and this retrospective collection demonstrated the remarkable range and consistency of a poet who had witnessed and written through some of the most turbulent decades in modern history. The inclusion of 43 new poems ensured that the collection wasn’t merely backward-looking nostalgia but a vital statement of an artist still actively creating.

Meanwhile, Katherine Paterson’s The Master Puppeteer won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, marking a significant moment in children’s publishing. Paterson’s novel, set in eighteenth-century Japan, brought intellectual rigor and emotional depth to a genre often underestimated by the literary establishment. The award validated what savvy readers already knew: that literature for young people could achieve the same artistic ambition and narrative sophistication as any adult novel. The 1977 National Book Awards thus reflected a year when American letters found reasons to celebrate both the accumulated wisdom of an elder statesman and the fresh innovation of a writer expanding the possibilities of young adult fiction.

The winners reveal the range of talent the National Book Award committee sought to honor that year:

Poetry

• Collected Poems, 1930–1976: Including 43 New Poems by Richard Eberhart

Young People’s Literature

• The Master Puppeteer by Katherine Paterson