Doerr, Powers on fiction longlist for National Book Awards

Anthony Doerr, Richard Powers and Lauren Groff are among this years nominees on the National Book Awards’ fiction longlist, which also includes Honorée Fanonne Jeffers’ debut novel “The Love Songs of W

NEW YORK -- Anthony Doerr, Richard Powers and Lauren Groff are among this years nominees on the National Book Awards' fiction longlist, which also includes Honorée Fanonne Jeffers' epic debut novel “The Love Songs of W. E. B. Du Bois,” already an Oprah Winfrey selection and finalist for the Kirkus Prize.

Doerr's “Cloud Cuckoo Land” is his first novel since his Pulitzer Prize-winning “All the Light We Cannot See” and Powers' “Bewilderment” is his first book since the Pulitzer winning “The Overstory.” Groff's “Matrix” is her third consecutive work to receive a National Book Award nomination, following “Fates and Furies” and the story collection “Florida.”

Other works cited Friday by the National Book Foundation are Jakob Guanzon's “Abundance,” Laird Hunt's “Zorrie,” Robert Jones, Jr.'s “The Prophets,” Katie Kitamura's “Intimacies,” Elizabeth McCracken's “The Souvenir Museum: Stories” and Jason Mott's “Hell of a Book.”

Judges also bypassed some notable fiction of 2021, including Colson Whitehead's “Harlem Shuffle," Jonathan Franzen's “Crossroads” and two finalists for the Booker Prize: Patricia Lockwood's “No One Is Talking About This" and Maggie Shipstead's “Great Circle.”