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New Yorker Reveals 2026 National Book Award Fiction Longlist, Including Marlon James and Edwidge Danticat

award · 2026-09-17

The New Yorker has revealed the longlist for the 2026 National Book Award in fiction, which includes Marlon James's "The Disappearers," hailed by Dwight Garner as "the novel of the decade." Also featured is Edwidge Danticat's "Dèy," which tells the story of a survivor of a mass shooting. Kenan Orhan's "The Renovation" is characterized as a "haunting meditation on memory and displacement." Hannah Lillith Assadi's "Paradiso 17" portrays a Palestinian affected by the Nakba. Valeria Luiselli's "Beginning Middle End," first published in The New Yorker, is described as an "experience." Additionally, Louise Erdrich's "Python's Kiss" comprises five stories from The New Yorker, noted for their unexpected twists by fiction editor Deborah Treisman.

Key facts

  • The New Yorker exclusively announced the 2026 National Book Award fiction longlist during the week.
  • Marlon James's "The Disappearers" was nominated for a Booker Prize this spring and received an ecstatic Times review from Dwight Garner.
  • Edwidge Danticat's "Dèy" is about a woman who survives a mass shooting but tells no one.
  • Kenan Orhan's "The Renovation" features a woman's bathroom transforming into a cell in a Turkish prison.
  • Hannah Lillith Assadi's "Paradiso 17" concerns a Palestinian man displaced by the Nakba.
  • Valeria Luiselli's "Beginning Middle End" was originally published in The New Yorker and is narrated by a woman on a post-divorce road trip through Sicily with her daughter.
  • Five of the thirteen stories in Louise Erdrich's nominated collection "Python's Kiss" were first published in The New Yorker.
  • The New Yorker published Erdrich's story "Nero" in 2012.

Entities

Artists

Institutions

  • The New Yorker
  • National Book Award
  • Booker Prize
  • The New York Times

Locations

  • Sicily
  • Italy
  • Turkey

Sources

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