| Past Fiction Winners of the National Book Award |
|
| 2000 |
In America, Susan Sontag |
 |
| 1999 |
Waiting, Ha Jin |
| 1998 |
Charming Billy, Alice McDermott |
| 1997 |
Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier |
| 1996 |
Ship Fever, Andrea Barrett |
| 1995 |
Sabbath's Theater, Philip Roth |
| 1994 |
A Frolic of His Own, William Gaddis |
| 1993 |
The Shipping News, E. Annie Proulx |
| 1992 |
All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy |
| 1991 |
Mating, Norman Rush |
| 1990 |
Middle Passage, Charles Johnson |
|
| 1989 |
Spartina, John Casey |
 |
| 1988 |
Paris Trout, Pete Dexter |
| 1987 |
Paco's Story, Larry Heinemann |
| 1986 |
World's Fair, E. L. Doctorow |
| 1985 |
White Noise, Don DeLillo |
| 1984 |
Victory Over Japan: A Book of Stories, Ellen Gilchrist |
| 1983 |
The Color Purple, Alice Walker |
| 1982 |
Rabbit is Rich, John Updike |
| 1981 |
Plains Song, Wright Morris |
| 1980 |
Sophie's Choice, William Styron |
| 1979 |
Going After Cacciato, Tim O'Brien |
| 1978 |
Blood Ties, Mary Lee Settle |
| 1977 |
The Spectator Bird, Wallace Stegner |
| 1976 |
J R, William Gaddis |
 |
| 1975 |
Dog Soldiers, Robert Stone
& The Hair of Harold Roux, Thomas Williams |
| 1974 |
Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
& A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories, Isaac Bashevis Singer |
| 1973 |
Augustus, John Williams |
| 1972 |
The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor, Flannery O'Connor |
| 1971 |
Mr. Sammler's Planet, Saul Bellow |
| 1970 |
Them, Joyce Carol Oates |
| 1969 |
Steps, Jerzy Kosinski |
| 1968 |
The Eighth Day, Thornton Wilder |
| 1967 |
The Fixer, Bernard Malamud |
| 1966 |
The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter, Katherine Anne Porter |
| 1965 |
Herzog, Saul Bellow |
| 1964 |
The Centaur, John Updike |
| 1963 |
Morte D'Urban, J. F. Powers |
|
| 1962 |
The Moviegoer, Walker Percy |
|
| 1961 |
The Waters of Kronos, Conrad Richter |
|
| 1960 |
Goodbye, Columbus, Philip Roth |
|
| 1959 |
The Magic Barrel, Bernard Malamud |
 |
| 1958 |
The Wapshot Chronicle, John Cheever |
| 1957 |
The Field of Vision, Wright Morris |
| 1956 |
Ten North Frederick, John O'Hara |
| 1955 |
A Fable, William Faulkner |
| 1954 |
The Adventures of Augie March, Saul Bellow |
| 1953 |
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison |
| 1952 |
From Here to Eternity, James Jones |
| 1951 |
The Collected Stories of William Faulkner, William Faulkner |
| 1950 |
The Man With the Golden Arm, Nelson Algren |
