Image by Misha Friedman/Getty Images

By Talya Zax October 4, 2017

Masha Gessen and Elliot Ackerman are among the finalists for this year’s National Book Awards.

Gessen’s “The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia,” released this week, is a finalist for the award in nonfiction. Ackerman’s sophomore novel “Dark at the Crossing” is a finalist for the award in fiction. It is both writers’ first appearance as finalists for the prestigious honors. In 2016, Gessen served as a nonfiction judge for the Awards.

Nominated alongside Ackerman for fiction are Lisa Ko for “The Leavers,” Min Jin Lee for “Pachinko,” Carmen Maria Machado for “Her Body and Other Parties: Stories” and Jesmyn Ward for “Sing, Unburied, Sing.”

Finalists in the nonfiction category, alongside Gessen, are Erica Armstrong Dunbar for “Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge,” Frances FitzGerald for “The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America,” David Grann for “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI” and Nancy MacLean for “Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America.”

Winners of the Awards will be announced at a gala on November 15.

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