Awarded each year in four genres: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Young People's Literature, the National Book award is one of North America's most coveted literary prizes. Here are the past ten years' winners from the Fiction category:
1. 2006 - The Echo Maker by Richard Powers
An accident leaves twenty-seven-year-old mark Schluter with a neurological disorder that will change his life forever.
2. 2005 - Europe Central by William T. Vollman
William Vollman composites 37 short pieces of historical fiction in his novel that examines the Central Europe superpowers of Germany and Russia during the turbulent mid 20th Century.3. 2004 - The News from Paraguay by Lily Tuck
19th century Paraguay through the eyes of the country's dicatator's Irish courtesan.4. 2003 - The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard
Set after World War II, The Great Fire tells the story of one man and one woman attempting to reinvent their lives amidst the post-war rubble.5. 2002 - Three Junes by Julia Glass
Glass relates the tale of a Scottish family by drawing the reader into three vital months of June over ten years.6. 2001 - The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
Enid, after nearly fifty years as wife and mother, attempts to bring her decaying family together for one last Christmas in this modern portrait of the family in decline.7. 2000 - In America by Susan Sontag
Sontag deftly places the reader in 19th century California where a Polish actress and her comrades fail to found their utopian commune, but succeed at so much more.8. 1999 - Waiting by Ha Jin
Chinese Doctor Lin Kong's love for two women contrasts ancient China with the China of the Cultural Revolution while exploring the universal struggle of the individual with society and his own heart.9. 1998 - Charming Billy by Alice McDermott
When Billy dies from a life of alcoholism, family and friends eulogize him in a Bronx bar, telling his tragic story and their own.10. 1997 - Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
A confederate soldier's treacherous journey home to the Blue Ridge Mountains and his wife, Ada, who meanwhile trying to survive her own challenges working the farm she inherited from her father.