The National Book Award for Fiction

On March 15, 1950, a consortium of book publishing groups sponsored the first annual National Book Awards Ceremony and Dinner at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. Their goal was to enhance the public's awareness of exceptional books written by fellow Americans, and to increase the popularity of reading in general.

Listed here are the winners in the Fiction category. Other categories include Nonfiction, Poetry, Young People's Literature, and the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

	2007	Tree of Smoke, by Denis Johnson
	2006	The Echo Maker by Richard Powers
	2005	Europe Central by William T. Vollman
	2004	The News from Paraguay by Lily Tuck
	2003	The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard
	2002	Three Junes by Julia Glass
	2001	The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
	2000	In America by Susan Sontag
	1999	Waiting by Ha Jin
	1998	Charming Billy by Alice McDermott
	1997	Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
	1996	Ship Fever and Other Stories by Andrea Barrett
	1995	Sabbath's Theater by Phillip Roth
	1994	A Frolic of His Own by William Gaddis
	1993	The Shipping News by Annie Proulx
	1992	All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
	1991	Mating by Norman Rush
	1990	Middle Passage by Charles Johnson
	1989	Spartina by John Casey
	1988	Paris Trout by Pete Dexter
	1987	Paco's Story by Larry Heinemann
	1986	World's Fair by E. L. Doctorow
		Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez
	1985	White Noise by Don Delillo
		Easy in the Islands by Bob Shacochis (1st Novel Award)
	1984	Stones for Ibarra by Harriet Doerr (1st Novel Award)
		Victory Over Japan by Ellen Gilchrist
	1983	The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor
		The Collected Stories by Eudora Welty
		The Color Purple by Alice Walker
	1982	Dale Loves Sophie to Death by Robb Forman Dew (1st Novel Award)
		Rabbit is Rich by John Updike
	1981	Plains Song by Wright Morris
		Sister Wolf by Ann Aremberg (1st Novel Award)
	1980	Birdy by William Wharton (1st Novel Award)
		Sophie's Choice by William Styron
		The World According to Garp by John Irving
	1979	Going After Cacciato by Tim O'Brien
	1978	Blood Ties by Mary Lee Settle
	1977	The Spectator Bird by Wallace Stegner
		Master Rung's Western Chamber Romance by Li Li Chen (No copies available.)
	1976	JR by William Gaddis
	1975	The Hair of Harold Roux by Thomas Williams
		Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone
	1974	Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
		A Crown of Feathers and Other Storiesby Isaac Bashevis Singer
	1973	Augustus by John Williams
		Chimera by John Barth
	1972	The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor
	1971	Mr. Sammler's Planet by Saul Bellow
	1970	Them by Joyce Carol Oates
	1969	Steps by Jerzy Kosinski
	1968	The Eighth Day by Thornton Wilder
	1967	The Fixer by Bernhard Malamud
	1966	The Collected Stories by Katherine Anne Porter
	1965	Herzog by Saul Bellow
	1964	The Centaur by John Updike
	1963	Morte d'Urban by J. F. Powers
	1962	The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
	1961	The Waters of Kronos by Conrad Richter
	1960	Goodbye Columbus by Philip Roth
	1959	The Magic Barrel by Bernard Malamud
	1958	Wapshot Chornicle by John Cheever
	1957	The Field of Vision by Wright Morris
	1956	Ten North Frederick by John O'Hara
	1955	A Fable by William Faulkner
	1954	The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow
	1953	Invisible Man by Ralph Elison
	1952	From Here to Eternity by James Jones
	1951	The Collected Stories by William Faulkner
	1950	The Man with the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren