NEW YORK •Zadie Smith, Michael Chabon, Ann Patchett and Jane Mayer are among the finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Awards.

Thirty finalists in six categories - autobiography, biography, fiction, non-fiction, poetry and criticism - were announced on Tuesday by the organisation, which was founded in 1974 and is made up of 1,000 literary critics and book review editors around the United States.

In non-fiction, finalists include Ibram X. Kendi's Stamped From The Beginning: The Definitive History Of Racist Ideas In America, which won the 2016 National Book Award for non-fiction; and Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam And The Memory Of War by Viet Thanh Nguyen, who won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction last year for his novel, The Sympathizer.

Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood will receive the organisation's lifetime achievement award.

The John Leonard Prize, for the best first book in any genre, will be awarded to Yaa Gyasi for her debut novel, Homegoing, which follows several generations of a family with roots in Ghana.

Book critic Michelle Dean, whose work appears in The Guardian, The New Republic and elsewhere, will receive a citation for excellence in reviewing.

Winners will be announced on March 16 at The New School's Tishman Auditorium in New York, in a free public event.

NYTIMES