Two Oregon writers, Karen Russell and Omar El Akkad, are among the finalists for the 2025 National Book Award. The 25 finalists in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature, and young people’s literature were announced Tuesday. Each was selected by a panel of judges and chosen for their creativity, mastery, and the impact of their work on American literary audiences.

Karen Russell, a Portland novelist, short story writer, and author of six books of fiction, including the Pulitzer Prize finalist Swamplandia!, is nominated in fiction for The Antidote. The novel tells the story of a historic dust storm that ravages a small town in Nebraska, and the “Prairie Witch” who holds the memories and secrets for the residents of this town.

Also nominated is fellow Portland author Omar El Akkad, novelist, journalist, and two-time winner of the Oregon Book Award in fiction for American War in 2018 and What Strange Paradise in 2022. His book, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, is nominated in the nonfiction category. The book, described by The New York Times as a “bracing memoir and manifesto,” considers what it means to be a Westerner today and centers on the stories of Palestinian people living in war-torn Gaza.

Both Russell and El Akkad are scheduled to appear Nov. 8 at the Portland Book Festival.

Two other Northwest writers also made the finalist list. Claudia Rowe’s Wards of the State: The Long Shadow of American Foster Care is a nonfiction finalist. It was called “An immersive, devastating look at foster children’s lives” by the Seattle Times. In translated literature, Shelley Fairweather-Vega’s translation of Hamid Ismailov’s We Computers: A Ghazel Novel, from the Uzbek, offers a multilayered exploration of poetry in the digital age. Both women live in Seattle.

The winners of the 2025 National Book Award will be announced on Nov. 19 in New York City. Winners will receive a $10,000 cash prize, a bronze sculpture, and a medal in recognition of their achievements.

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