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The National Book Award for Fiction, 2025 winner

The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)

by Rabih Alameddine

Raja is a sixty-three-year-old philosophy teacher in Beirut, gay, fond of Sartre and of rules, who shares a tiny flat with his mother Zalfa, a woman with no rules at all. Looking back from recent years of protest and pandemic to his youth during the civil war, he tells a story that swings between farce and grief, often on the same page. Alameddine makes the bond between mother and son, maddening and devoted by turns, the thread that holds a chaotic history together.

Book detailsAbout Rabih Alameddine

About the prize

American publishers founded the National Book Awards in 1950; they are now run by the nonprofit National Book Foundation in New York, set up in 1988. Each category has its own panel of five judges, who name a longlist of ten in September, five finalists in October and a winner at a ceremony in November. From 1980 to 1983 the fiction award was split into separate hardcover and paperback prizes, and in 1973, 1974 and 1975 it was shared between two books.

First given
1950
Based in
USA
We list
Fiction

Winners, year by year

83 winning books since 1950 (Fiction), newest first.

2020s

  1. 2025The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) by Rabih Alameddine
  2. 2024James by Percival Everett
  3. 2023Blackouts by Justin Torres
  4. 2022The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty
  5. 2021Hell of a Book by Jason Mott
  6. 2020Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu

2010s

  1. 2019Trust Exercise by Susan Choi
  2. 2018The Friend by Sigrid Nunez
  3. 2017Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
  4. 2016The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
  5. 2015Fortune Smiles by Adam Johnson
  6. 2014Redeployment by Phil Klay
  7. 2013The Good Lord Bird by James McBride
  8. 2012The Round House by Louise Erdrich
  9. 2011Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
  10. 2010Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon

2000s

  1. 2009Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
  2. 2008Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen
  3. 2007Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson
  4. 2006The Echo Maker by Richard Powers
  5. 2005Europe Central by William T. Vollmann
  6. 2004The News from Paraguay by Lily Tuck
  7. 2003The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard
  8. 2002Three Junes by Julia Glass
  9. 2001The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
  10. 2000In America by Susan Sontag

1990s

  1. 1999Waiting by Ha Jin
  2. 1998Charming Billy by Alice McDermott
  3. 1997Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
  4. 1996Ship Fever and Other Stories by Andrea Barrett
  5. 1995Sabbath's Theater by Philip Roth
  6. 1994A Frolic of His Own by William Gaddis
  7. 1993The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
  8. 1992All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
  9. 1991Mating by Norman Rush
  10. 1990Middle Passage by Charles Johnson

1980s

  1. 1989Spartina by John Casey
  2. 1988Paris Trout by Pete Dexter
  3. 1987Paco's Story by Larry Heinemann
  4. 1986World's Fair by E. L. Doctorow
  5. 1985White Noise by Don DeLillo
  6. 1984Victory Over Japan by Ellen Gilchrist
  7. 1983The Color Purple by Alice WalkerHardcover award — shared year, split by format (1980–83)
  8. 1983The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty by Eudora WeltyPaperback award — shared year, split by format (1980–83)
  9. 1982Rabbit Is Rich by John UpdikeHardcover award — shared year, split by format (1980–83)
  10. 1982So Long, See You Tomorrow by William MaxwellPaperback award — shared year, split by format (1980–83)
  11. 1981Plains Song by Wright MorrisHardcover award — shared year, split by format (1980–83)
  12. 1981The Stories of John Cheever by John CheeverPaperback award — shared year, split by format (1980–83)
  13. 1980Sophie's Choice by William StyronHardcover award — shared year, split by format (1980–83)
  14. 1980The World According to Garp by John IrvingPaperback award — shared year, split by format (1980–83)

1970s

  1. 1979Going After Cacciato by Tim O'Brien
  2. 1978Blood Tie by Mary Lee Settle
  3. 1977The Spectator Bird by Wallace Stegner
  4. 1976J R by William Gaddis
  5. 1975Dog Soldiers by Robert Stonejoint winner
  6. 1975The Hair of Harold Roux by Thomas Williamsjoint winner
  7. 1974Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchonjoint winner
  8. 1974A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories by Isaac Bashevis Singerjoint winner
  9. 1973Chimera by John Barthjoint winner
  10. 1973Augustus by John Williamsjoint winner
  11. 1972The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor
  12. 1971Mr. Sammler's Planet by Saul Bellow
  13. 1970them by Joyce Carol Oates

1960s

  1. 1969Steps by Jerzy Kosiński
  2. 1968The Eighth Day by Thornton Wilder
  3. 1967The Fixer by Bernard Malamud
  4. 1966The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter by Katherine Anne Porter
  5. 1965Herzog by Saul Bellow
  6. 1964The Centaur by John Updike
  7. 1963Morte d'Urban by J. F. Powers
  8. 1962The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
  9. 1961The Waters of Kronos by Conrad Richter
  10. 1960Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth

1950s

  1. 1959The Magic Barrel by Bernard Malamud
  2. 1958The Wapshot Chronicle by John Cheever
  3. 1957The Field of Vision by Wright Morris
  4. 1956Ten North Frederick by John O'Hara
  5. 1955A Fable by William Faulkner
  6. 1954The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow
  7. 1953Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
  8. 1952From Here to Eternity by James Jones
  9. 1951Collected Stories of William Faulkner by William Faulkner
  10. 1950The Man with the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren

2026 finalists

Winner to be announced on 18 November 2026.

Facts checked on 12 October 2026 against en.wikipedia.org, query.wikidata.org, nationalbook.org, theguardian.com, publishersweekly.com, openlibrary.org. The words on this page are Read2Reason’s own.