John Leonard Prize

The John Leonard Prize for Best First Book, established in 2013, is an annual literary award presented by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) for authors' first books in any genre.^[1] Unlike other NBCC awards, recipients are selected by members, not the board.^[1]

The prize is named after John Leonard, a renowned literary critic and NBCC co-founder.^[1]

Recipients

John Leonard Prize winners and honors

Year	Author	Title	Result	Ref.
2013	Anthony Marra	A Constellation of Vital Phenomena	Winner	[2]
2014	Phil Klay	Redeployment	Winner	[3][4]
2015	Kirstin Valdez Quade	Night at the Fiestas	Winner	[5]
2016	Yaa Gyasi	Homegoing	Winner	[6]
	Brit Bennett	The Mothers	Finalist	[7]
	Emma Cline	The Girls
	Nicole Dennis-Benn	Here Comes the Sun
	Nathan Hill	The Nix
	Max Porter	Grief Is the Thing with Feathers
2017	Carmen Maria Machado	Her Body and Other Parties	Winner	[8][9][10]
	Lesley Nneka Arimah	What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky	Finalist	[11]
	Julie Buntin	Marlena
	Zinzi Clemmons	What We Lose
	Layli Long Soldier	Whereas
	Gabriel Tallent	My Absolute Darling
2018	Tommy Orange	There There	Winner	[12][13][14]
2019	Sarah M. Broom	The Yellow House	Winner	[15][16]
	Taffy Brodesser-Akner	Fleishman Is in Trouble	Finalist	[17]
	Chia-Chia Lin	The Unpassing
	T Kira Madden	Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls: A Memoir
	Julia Phillips	Disappearing Earth
	Jia Tolentino	Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion
	Bryan Washington	Lot: Stories
2020	Raven Leilani	Luster	Winner	[18][19]
	Megha Majumdar	A Burning	Finalist	[20]
	C Pam Zhang	How Much of These Hills Is Gold
	Kerri Arsenault	Mill Town: Reckoning with What Remains
	Brandon Taylor	Real Life
	Douglas Stuart	Shuggie Bain
	Karla Cornejo Villavicencio	The Undocumented Americans
2021	Anthony Veasna So	Afterparties	Winner	[21][22]
	Torrey Peters	Detransition, Baby	Finalist	[23][24][25]
	Jocelyn Nicole Johnson	My Monticello
	Devon Walker-Figueroa	Philomath: Poems
	Larissa Pham	Pop Song: Adventures in Art & Intimacy
	Ashley C. Ford	Somebody's Daughter: A Memoir
2022	Morgan Talty	Night of the Living Rez	Winner	[26]
	Jessamine Chan	The School for Good Mothers	Finalist	[27]
	Jonathan Escoffery	If I Survive You
	Tess Gunty	The Rabbit Hutch
	Zain Khalid	Brother Alive
	Maud Newton	Ancestor Trouble
	Vauhini Vara	The Immortal King Rao
2023	Tahir Hamut Izgil	Waiting to Be Arrested at Night	Winner	[28]
	Ariana Benson	Black Pastoral	Finalist	[28]
	Emilie Boone	A Nimble Arc
	Victor Heringer trans. James Young	The Love of Singular Men
2024	Tessa Hulls	Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir	Winner	[29]
	Carrie Courogen	Miss May Does Not Exist: The Life and Work of Elaine May, Hollywood's Hidden Genius	Finalist	[30]
	Vinson Cunningham	Great Expectations
	John Ganz	When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s
	Cindy Juyoung Ok	Ward Toward
	Rebecca Nagle	By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land

See also

• Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award
• National Book Critics Circle Awards
• National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography
• National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism
• National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction
• National Book Critics Circle Award for Memoir and Autobiography
• National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction
• National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry
• Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing