NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work – Fiction

This article lists the winners and nominees for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work – Fiction. Walter Mosley holds the record for most wins in this category, with three.

Year	Book	Author	Result	Ref.
1996	Children of the Dust	Clancy Carlile	Winner	^[1]
1999				^[1]
1999	Mama Flora's Family	Alex Haley and David Stevens	Winner	^[2]^{[better source needed]}

Year	Book	Author	Result	Ref.
2001	For the Love of Money	Omar Tyree	Winner
2002	A Day Late and a Dollar Short	Terry McMillan	Winner	^[3]^{[better source needed]}
2003	Quilting the Black-Eyed Pea	Nikki Giovanni	Winner	^[4]^[5]^{[better source needed]}
	A Love of My Own	E. Lynn Harris	Finalist
	The Emperor of Ocean Park	Stephen L. Carter
	Thieves' Paradise	Eric Jerome Dickey
	The Bondswoman's Narrative	Hannah Crafts, edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr.
2004	Love	Toni Morrison	Winner	^[6]^{[better source needed]}
	The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni	Nikki Giovanni	Finalist	^[6]^{[better source needed]}
	Diary of a Groupie	Omar Tyree
	A Poem Traveled Down My Arm: Poems and Drawings	Alice Walker
	The Other Woman	Eric Jerome Dickey
2005	Woman, Thou Art Loosed! The Novel	Bishop T. D. Jakes	Winner	^[7]^{[better source needed]}
2006	Breaking the Cycle	Zane	Winner
	72 Hour Hold	Bebe Moore Campbell	Finalist
	Cinnamon Kiss	Walter Mosley
	Fledgling	Octavia E. Butler
	Genevieve	Eric Jerome Dickey
2007	Baby Brother's Blues	Pearl Cleage	Winner	^[8]
	After	Marita Golden	Finalist	^[8]^[9]
	All Aunt Hagar's Children	Edward P. Jones
	Fortunate Son	Walter Mosley
	Wizard of the Crow	Ngugi wa Thiongo
2008	Blonde Faith	Walter Mosley	Winner	^[10]
	The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao	Junot Díaz	Finalist	^[11]
	Cion	Zakes Mda
	Knots	Nuruddin Farah
	New England White	Stephen L. Carter
2009	In the Night of the Heat	Blair Underwood, Tananarive Due, and Steven Barnes	Winner	^[12]
	Blood Colony	Tananarive Due	Finalist	^[13]
	Going Down South	Bonnie Glover
	Just Too Good to Be True	E. Lynn Harris
	Song Yet Sung	James McBride

Year	Book	Author	Result	Ref.
2010	The Long Fall	Walter Mosley	Winner	^[15]
	Basketball Jones	E. Lynn Harris	Finalist	^[16]
	Before I Forget	Leonard Pitts
	Life Is Short But Wide	J. California Cooper
	The Book of Night Women	Marlon James
2011	Getting to Happy	Terry McMillan	Winner	^[17]
	A Taste of Honey	Jabari Asim	Finalist
	Glorious	Bernice L. McFadden
	Till You Hear from Me	Pearl Cleage
	Wench	Dolen Perkins-Valdez
2012	Say Amen, Again	ReShonda Tate Billingsley	Winner	^[18]
	Boundaries	Elizabeth Nunez	Finalist	^[18]
	A Silken Thread	Brenda Jackson
	Silver Sparrow	Tayari Jones
	The Plot Against Hip Hop	Nelson George
2013	The Reverend's Wife	Kimberla Lawson Roby	Winner	^[19]
	Destiny's Divas	Victoria Christopher Murray	Finalist	^[19]^[20]
	The Secret She Kept	ReShonda Tate Billingsley
	Silent Cry	Dywane Birch
	A Wish and a Prayer	Beverly Jenkins
2014	Anybody's Daughter	Pamela Samuels Young	Winner	^[21]
	A Deeper Love Inside: The Porscha Santiaga Story	Sister Souljah	Finalist	^[21]
	Little Green: An Easy Rawlins Mystery	Walter Mosley
	Never Say Never	Victoria Christopher Murray
	Who Asked You?	Terry McMillan
2015	A Wanted Woman	Eric Jerome Dickey	Winner	^[22]
	An Untamed State	Roxane Gay	Finalist	^[22]
	Another Woman’s Man	Shelly Ellis
	Momma: Gone	Nina Foxx
	The Prodigal Son	Kimberla Lawson Roby
2016	Stand Your Ground	Victoria Christopher Murray	Winner	^[23]^[24]
	Driving the King	Ravi Howard	Finalist	^[23]
	Ghost Summer: Stories	Tananarive Due
	Mama's Boy	ReShonda Tate Billingsley
	Under the Udala Trees	Chinelo Okparanta
2017	The Book of Harlan	Bernice McFadden	Winner	^[25]
	Another Brooklyn	Jacqueline Woodson	Finalist	^[25]
	The Illegal	Lawrence Hill
	The Mother	Yvvette Edwards
	The Underground Railroad	Colson Whitehead
2018	The Annotated African American Folktales	Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Maria Tatar	Winner	^[26]
	Little Fires Everywhere	Celeste Ng	Finalist	^[26]
	No One Is Coming to Save Us	Stephanie Powell Watts
	Sing, Unburied, Sing	Jesmyn Ward
	The Wide Circumference of Love	Marita Golden
2019	An American Marriage	Tayari Jones	Winner	^[27]
	Better Late Than Never	Kimberla Lawson Roby	Finalist	^[27]
	Black Panther: Who is the Black Panther? Prose Novel	Jesse James Holland Jr.
	Envy	Victoria Christopher Murray
	They Come in All Colors	Malcolm Hansen

Year	Book	Author	Result	Ref.
2020	The Revisioners	Margaret Wilkerson Sexton	Winner	^[28]
	New Daughters of Africa	Margaret Busby	Finalist	^[28]
	Out of Darkness, Shining Light	Petina Gappah
	Red at the Bone	Jacqueline Woodson
	The Water Dancer	Ta-Nehisi Coates
2021	The Awkward Black Man	Walter Mosley	Winner	^[29]
	Lakewood	Megan Giddings	Finalist	^[30]
	The Vanishing Half	Brit Bennett
	Riot Baby	Tochi Onyebuchi
	Black Bottom Saints	Alice Randall
2022	Long Division	Kiese Laymon	Winner	^[31]^[32]
	Harlem Shuffle	Colson Whitehead	Finalist	^[31]
	Libertie	Kaitlyn Greenidge
	The Man Who Lived Underground	Richard Wright
	The Perishing	Natashia Deón
2023	Take My Hand	Dolen Perkins-Valdez	Winner	^[33]
	Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction	Natashia Deón	Finalist	^[34]
	Light Skin Gone to Waste	Toni Ann Johnson
	The Keeper	Tananarive Due and Steven Barnes
	You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty	Akwaeke Emezi
2024	Family Lore	Elizabeth Acevedo	Winner	^[35]
	Everything Is Not Enough	Lola Akinmade Åkerström	Finalist	^[36]
	House of Eve	Sadeqa Johnson
	The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store	James McBride
	Let Us Descend	Jesmyn Ward
2025	One of Us Knows: A Thriller	Alyssa Cole	Winner	^[37]
	A Love Song for Ricki Wilde	Tia Williams	Finalist	^[37]
	Grown Woman	Sarai Johnson
	Neighbors and Other Stories	Diane Oliver
	What You Leave Behind	Wanda M. Morris
2026	Death of the Author	Nnedi Okorafor	Winner	^[38]
	Can't Get Enough	Kennedy Ryan	Finalist	^[38]
	Chronicles of Ori: An African Epic	Harmonia Rosales
	Happy Land	Dolen Perkins-Valdez
	Harlem Rhapsody	Victoria Christopher Murray

NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work – Fiction

Winners and nominees

1990s

2000s

2010s

2020s

Multiple wins and nominations

Wins

Nominations

References

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