Novelist Rabih Alameddine and poet Patricia Smith win National Book Awards

NEW YORK (AP) — National Book Awards judges honored authors worldwide on Wednesday night, from Lebanese novelist Rabih Alameddine’s “The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)" to Chicago-born poet Patricia Smith's “The Intentions of Thunder.”

Alameddine's narrative of intense family bonds within the chaos of modern Lebanon received the fiction prize, while Smith, who has received numerous previous awards for her lyricism and intensity, won for poetry. The nonfiction prize was given to the Canadian Iranian novelist-journalist Omar El Akkad for his fierce indictment of the contemporary West, “One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This."

Iranian American Daniel Nayeri’s “The Teacher of Nomad Land: A World War II Story" won for young people’s literature and Argentine Gabriela Cabezón Cámara’s “We Are Green and Trembling,” translated from Spanish by Robin Myers, was cited for translated literature.

Winners each receive $10,000.

The awards have often served as a kind of counter voice to current events. The night’s honorees expressed gratitude for prizes bestowed and for literature itself, and horror and disenchantment at the political and social climate, from immigration raids in the U.S. by masked agents to the carnage in the Middle East.

“I’m going to speak in Spanish because there are fascists who don’t like that,” Cabezón Cámara said, her words translated on stage by Myers.

El Akkad said it was “very difficult to to think in celebratory terms about a book that was written in response to a genocide (in Gaza). It’s difficult to think in celebratory terms when I spent two years seeing what shrapnel does to a child’s body.”

Alameddine's speech, like his novel, combined humor and agony. He began with a lament for the bombing of a Palestinian refugee camp, but went on to joke about the demands of his agent, Nicole Aragi, and thank everyone from his gastrointestinal doctor to the “psychiatrist who has been telling me to get over myself for more than 20 years.”

Smith, in a highly emotional speech, offered a litany of racial and social barriers she confronted, including harsh words from her ailing mother, while offering tribute to poetry as a path to transcendence.

Hundreds of writers, publishers, editors and other industry professionals gathered at Cipriani Wall Street in Manhattan. The 76th annual National Book Awards, the so-called Oscars of book publishing, were a celebration, a protest and a performance.

Musical guest Corinne Rae Bailey opened the ceremony with a relaxed, funky “Put Your Records On,” and introduced host Jeff Heller, who greeted the “glitterati of the literati.”

The Emmy-winning actor joked that he wasn’t sure why he was the host, thanked everyone from celebrities who lead book clubs to independent store owners and lamented that a typo in early editions of his recent book, “A Certain Actress,” left some readers thinking he had published “A Cetain Actress.”

“Can you imagine Madeleine L'Engle discovering the cover of her book read ‘A Wrinkle in Tim’?”

Honorary awards were presented to fiction writer George Saunders and author-publisher-mentor Roxane Gay.

Saunders, widely praised for his legacy of dark humor and warm compassion, was this year’s recipient of the medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, previously given to Toni Morrison and Robert Caro among others. He remembered his early growth as a writer, and how revision changed him on the page and in real life, a “truth-seeking” process that sets the artist apart from the dictator and other bullies.

“We’re open to finding out how things actually are, not how we think they are, not how we wish they are, but how they actually are,” he said. “And this puts us in a less delusional relation to reality.”

Gay, given the Literarian medal for her contributions to the book community, noted that writing was a solitary endeavor but that sharing the word was a different challenge. She cited proudly her history of publishing and promoting diverse voices, mocked the idea that “straight white men just can’t catch a break” and urged the industry to change.

“There is room for all of our voices and there are people in this very room who have the power to do better,” she told the audience. “You have the power to abandon old ways of thinking and nonsense metrics like social media followings as a determining factor in buying a manuscript."

The National Book Awards were presented by the nonprofit National Book Foundation. Each competitive category was voted on by judging panels that include writers, booksellers and critics. They select winners from hundreds of books submitted by publishers.

New York Liberty mascot Ellie the Elephant attends the 76th National Book Awards ceremony at Cipriani Wall Street on Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP)

Actor Jeff Hiller, left, and singer-songwriter Corinne Bailey Rae attend the 76th National Book Awards ceremony at Cipriani Wall Street on Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP)

Author Roxane Gay attends the 76th National Book Awards ceremony at Cipriani Wall Street on Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP)

Author George Saunders attends the 76th National Book Awards ceremony at Cipriani Wall Street on Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP)

National Book Award in Fiction winning author Rabih Alameddine attends the 76th National Book Awards ceremony at Cipriani Wall Street on Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025, in New York. (Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP)

FILE - Author George Saunders poses for a portrait on Aug. 20, 2025, in Santa Monica, Calif. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, file)

CHICAGO (AP) — Cubs starter Jameson Taillon thinks he'll end up on the injured list after he left Chicago's 2-1, 10-inning loss to the San Francisco Giants on Sunday night with a strained left hamstring.

Taillon walked Matt Chapman to lead off the second with Chicago trailing 1-0. Then, the Cubs training staff and manager Craig Counsell came to the mound to talk to the right-hander. After a brief discussion, Taillon walked to the dugout and was replaced by righty Javier Assad, who was recalled from Triple-A Iowa on Saturday.

“I don't think it's crazy,” said Taillon, who'll have an MRI on Monday. “Like, I'm walking around and moving around. Obviously, it will be an IL stint, but hopefully we can keep the arm conditioned and moving around. I don't think it's surgical or anything like that.”

Taillon said he first felt discomfort in the hamstring after throwing an inside changeup to Chapman that made the count 2-2 in the at-bat.

“And then kind of in-between pitches, I was kind of trying to weigh whether I should throw another pitch or not, then threw the 3-2 pitch and kind of felt it a little more,” Taillon said. “Nothing I've ever felt. Unfortunately, just kind of one pitch did it.”

Taillon allowed a run in the first inning Sunday on a walk followed by two singles, pushing his ERA to 5.19. He entered the game 2-5 and had lost four straight decisions over his previous five starts.

Assad followed with 6 1/3 scoreless innings, allowing only one hit, along with a walk and a hit batter. He retired the final 12 Giants hitters he faced.

San Francisco won it in the 10th when Chapman singled in automatic runner Jonah Cox. The Giants won for the fourth time in their last five games and handed Chicago its 20th loss in 27.

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Chicago Cubs starting pitcher Jameson Taillon throws against the San Francisco Giants during the first inning of a baseball game in Chicago, Sunday, June 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)