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The Party Goes Late at the 75th National Book Awards


Sipping prosecco amid the black-tie crowd at the packed publishing-world event in lower Manhattan.

The dress code tonight is formal, and guests at the National Book Foundation’s 75th awards ceremony have mostly complied, wearing tuxedos, ball gowns, and lots of sequins. Along with Akbar, Everett, and July, the Nigerian author ’Pemi Aguda is nominated for Ghostroots, a collection of short stories, as is Hisham Matar for My Friends, his third novel, which won the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction this year. Not long after the ceremony, most of the more distinguished nominees have left for quieter places, and July is nowhere in sight; someone tells me they heard she was wearing “white briefs, which sounds interesting.” But Barbara Kingsolver is still around, holding court on the upstairs balcony in a long-sleeved red sequin dress.

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