Jhumpa Lahiri, Thomas Pynchon among National Book Award fiction finalists

The National Book Foundation announced the 2013 award finalists in fiction, non-fiction, poetry and young people's literature, and among the names for fiction are Thomas Pynchon and Jhumpa Lahiri.

The winners of the 2013 National Book Awards are announced Nov. 20 in New York and the winner receives a bronze statute along with $10,000, Reuters reports.

A previous winner, Thomas Pynchon is up for Bleeding Edge. Rachel Kushner is a finalist for her second novel, The Flamethrowers, which is about an artist interested in motorcycles.

Jhumpa Lahiri has been nominated for The Lowlands, which was also nominated for the 2013 Man Booker Prize, though she did not win. The Good Lord Bird, by James McBride, about surviving during the time of slavery is nominated, as well as George Saunders for Tenth of December.

Harold Augenbraum, executive director of the National Book Foundation said, "One of the things we have this year in fiction is a selection of stories with voices that are very different."

He added, "It seems like a very American list this year, more than in previous years."

USA Today notes that when Pynchon won in 1974 for Gravity's Rainbow, comedian Irwin Corey was sent on the reclusive author's behalf.

Many that attended that awards dinner assumed Corey was really Pynchon as few knew what the author even looked like.

The National Book Awards has changed over the past few years after being stung by criticism that it had become too pretentious. So instead of a five-member panel of only authors, critics and booksellers were added to flesh it out.

USA Today has the complete list of nominees for all four categories.

image: Amazon

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