Living Canon

National Book Critics Circle Award 2017: Complete list of winners

The 2017 National Book Critics Circle Awards celebrated a remarkably diverse slate of voices and perspectives, honoring six winners who collectively demonstrated the breadth and vitality of contemporary American letters. The NBCC Awards, long considered one of the most prestigious honors in publishing, showcased everything from intimate memoir to sweeping cultural history, with standout wins that reflected the literary establishment’s increasingly global outlook. Joan Silber’s Improvement claimed the Fiction prize, while Frances FitzGerald’s ambitious The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America took Nonfiction—a particularly significant recognition given FitzGerald’s stature as a cultural critic and historian.

Beyond these major categories, the 2017 National Book Critics Circle Award winners revealed fascinating trends in how contemporary authors were reckoning with identity, history, and representation. Caroline Fraser’s Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder earned the Biography prize with its revisionist approach to a beloved American icon, while Xiaolu Guo’s Nine Continents: A Memoir In and Out of China brought an international dimension to the Autobiography category. Carina Chocano’s You Play the Girl: On Playboy Bunnies, Stepford Wives, Train Wrecks, & Other Mixed Messages won Criticism for its sharp cultural analysis, and Layli Long Soldier’s Whereas claimed the Poetry award, adding another important Indigenous voice to the circle’s honors.

Below, you’ll find the complete rundown of all six 2017 NBCC Award winners and what made each one resonate with the critics’ circle.

Autobiography

Biography

Criticism

Fiction

Nonfiction

Poetry