National Book Critics Circle Award 2000s: A decade of winners
The 2000s were a golden age for the National Book Critics Circle Award, a decade when the prize seemed to have its finger on the pulse of what mattered most in contemporary letters. This was an era of ambitious fiction and fearless nonfiction—a time when the NBCC, one of America’s most prestigious literary honors, recognized sweeping historical epics alongside intimate lyrical moments. Ian McEwan’s Atonement claimed the fiction prize in 2002 with its intricate metafictional architecture, while Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao arrived five years later to capture readers’ hearts with its blend of Dominican history and geek culture. These were books that didn’t just entertain; they insisted on being reckoned with, and the National Book Critics Circle Award winners of the period reflected a critical consensus that literary ambition and emotional depth weren’t mutually exclusive.
Beyond fiction, the decade showcased how the NBCC’s multiple categories—including autobiography, biography, criticism, and nonfiction—allowed for a richer conversation about what books could accomplish. Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall secured the fiction award in 2009 with its densely imagined Tudor England, while serious nonfiction works like Samantha Power’s A Problem from Hell and Svetlana Alexievich’s Voices from Chernobyl demonstrated that the award’s nonfiction categories took on some of the most consequential subjects of the age: genocide, nuclear catastrophe, and the hidden corners of history. The decade also saw substantial biographical works—Janet Browne’s second volume on Charles Darwin, William Taubman’s monumental Khrushchev—establishing that life writing had become as intellectually rigorous as any novel.
What made the 2000s particularly distinctive for the NBCC was how these winners captured a restless literary moment: writers were experimenting with form, wrestling with history, and pushing against the boundaries of genre itself. Whether through Roberto Bolaño’s labyrinthine 2666, W.G. Sebald’s melancholic meditations, or Mary Jo Bang’s innovative poetry, the decade’s honorees shared an appetite for complexity and difficulty. Below, you’ll find the complete list of National Book Critics Circle Award winners from 2000 to 2009, organized by category and year.
2000
Autobiography
Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan by Herbert P. Bix
Biography
- Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan by Herbert P. Bix
Criticism
Quarrel & Quandary by Cynthia Ozick
Fiction
Being Dead by Jim Crace
Nonfiction
Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing by Ted Conover
Poetry
Carolina Ghost Woods by Judy Jordan
2001
Autobiography
Biography
Criticism
The War Against Cliché: Essays and Reviews, 1971–2000 by Martin Amis
Fiction
- Austerlitz by W.G. SebaldwithAnthea Bell(trans.)
Nonfiction
Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper by Nicholson Baker
Poetry
Saving Lives by Albert Goldbarth
2002
Autobiography
Charles Darwin: The Power of Place, Vol. II by Janet Browne
Biography
- Charles Darwin: The Power of Place, Vol. II by Janet Browne
Criticism
- Tests of Time by William H. Gass
Fiction
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Nonfiction
A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power
Poetry
Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest by B.H. Fairchild
2003
Autobiography
Khrushchev: The Man and His Era by William Taubman
Biography
- Khrushchev: The Man and His Era by William Taubman
Criticism
River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West by Rebecca Solnit
Fiction
The Known World by Edward P. Jones
Nonfiction
Sons of Mississippi by Paul Hendrickson
Poetry
Columbarium by Susan Stewart
2004
Autobiography
de Kooning: An American Master by Mark StevensandAnnalyn Swan
Biography
- de Kooning: An American Master by Mark StevensandAnnalyn Swan
Criticism
Where You’re At: Notes From the Frontline of a Hip-Hop Planet by Patrick Neate
Fiction
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Nonfiction
The Reformation: A History by Diarmaid MacCulloch
Poetry
The School Among the Ruins by Adrienne Rich
2005
Autobiography
Them: A Memoir of Parents by Francine du Plessix Gray
Biography
- American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai BirdandMartin J. Sherwin
Criticism
The Undiscovered Country: Poetry in the Age of Tin by William Logan
Fiction
The March by E. L. Doctorow
Nonfiction
- Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster by Svetlana Alexievich
Poetry
Refusing Heaven by Jack Gilbert
2006
Autobiography
- The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million by Daniel Mendelsohn
Biography
James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon by Julie Phillips
Criticism
Everything That Rises: A Book of Convergences by Lawrence Weschler
Fiction
- The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
Nonfiction
Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution by Simon Schama
Poetry
Tom Thomson in Purgatory by Troy Jollimore
2007
Autobiography
Brother, I’m Dying by Edwidge Danticat
Biography
Criticism
Fiction
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
Nonfiction
Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans From Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet A. Washington
Poetry
Elegy by Mary Jo Bang
2008
Autobiography
Biography
The World is What it is: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul by Patrick French
Criticism
- Children’s Literature: A Readers’ History: Reader’s History from Aesop to Harry Potter by Seth Lerer
Fiction
2666 by Roberto BolañowithNatasha Wimmer(trans.)
Nonfiction
The Forever War by Dexter Filkins
Poetry
Half the World in Light by Juan Felipe Herrera
2009
Autobiography
Somewhere Towards the End by Diana Athill
Biography
Cheever: A Life by Blake Bailey
Criticism
Notes from No Man’s Land: American Essays by Eula Biss
Fiction
- Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
Nonfiction
- The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes
Poetry
- Versed by Rae Armantrout