Graphic novel nominated for National Book Award

For the first time, a graphic novel, Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie, A Tale of Love and Fallout by Lauren Redniss, has been nominated as a nonfiction finalist for the US National Book Awards, announced on October 12.

For the first time, a graphic novel, Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie, A Tale of Love and Fallout by Lauren Redniss, has been nominated as a nonfiction finalist for the US National Book Awards, announced on October 12.

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The nominees for the 62nd National Book Awards include five books each in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and young people's literature categories. The honor, considered the most prestigious of the major American literary prizes, is comparable to Britain's Man Booker Prize.

An excerpt of Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie, A Tale of Love and Fallout can be viewed on the author's website, http://laurenredniss.com/, and Raidon, a game based on the book, can be played at the exhibition page at the New York Public Library: http://exhibitions.nypl.org/radioactive/.

Also a favorite in the non-fiction category is Malcolm X by Manning Marable, who died days before publication.

Among the other finalists selected by the National Book Foundation is a debut novel by Belgrade-born Tea Obrecht, The Tiger's Wife, and Jesmyn Ward's Salvage the Bones, a family story about facing Hurricane Katrina.

The awards will be presented November 16 in New York City at a ceremony hosted by comedian John Lithgow, where the winner will receive $10,000.

The 20 nominees follow:

Fiction:

Andrew Krivak, The Sojourn

Téa Obreht, The Tiger's Wife

Julie Otsuka, The Buddha in the Attic

Edith Pearlman, Binocular Vision

Jesmyn Ward, Salvage the Bones

Nonfiction:

Deborah Baker, The Convert: A Tale of Exile and Extremism

Mary Gabriel, Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution

Stephen Greenblatt, The Swerve: How the World Became Modern

Manning Marable, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention

Lauren Redniss, Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie, A Tale of Love and Fallout

Young People's Literature:

Chime by Franny Billingsley

My Name Is Not Easy by Debby Dahl Edwardson

Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai

Flesh and Blood So Cheap: The Triangle Fire and Its Legacy by Albert Marrin

Shine by Lauren Myracle

Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt

Poetry:

Head Off & Split by Nikky Finney

The Chameleon Couch by Yusef Komunyakaa

Double Shadow by Carl Phillips

Tonight No Poetry Will Serve: Poems 2007-2010 by Adrienne Rich

Devotions by Bruce Smith