Meet the 5 fiction finalists for the 2018 National Book Award

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai

Rebecca Makkai burst onto the novel scene in 2011 with her acclaimed debut The Borrower, which was named a Booklist Top 10 Debut and an O Magazine selection. Prior to that, she’d made waves in short fiction, being published in The Best American Short Stories series annually from 2008-2011. She received an NEA fellowship in 2014 and a Pushcart Prize in 2017. Her latest, The Great Believers, is “an absorbing and emotionally riveting story about what it’s like to live during times of crisis,” says the New York Times Book Review.