Sigrid Nunez won the fiction category of the National Book Awards for her book The Friend, a novel about a woman finding solace in her friendship with a Great Dane after the death of her best friend and mentor.

The National Book Awards are American literary prizes that celebrate literature in five categories: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translation and young people's literature.

The nonfiction category went to Jeffrey C. Stewart for his Alain Locke biography, The New Negro. Stewart, a professor of Black Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, chronicles the life and education of Locke, who is considered to be the father of the Harlem Renaissance.

The poetry prize was won by Justin Phillip Reed for his collection Indecency, which explores and criticizes the culture of white supremacy and its destructive symptoms in society.

The young people's literature category went to award-winning slam poet Elizabeth Acevedo for The Poet X. Acevedo's debut novel, The Poet X is the story of a young Harlem girl's discovery of slam poetry and the ways it shapes her understanding of her family.

American-Canadian author Christopher Paul Curtis was shortlisted in the young people's literature category for his book The Journey of Little Charlie.

The translated literature prize, a new category for the National Book Awards this year, went to The Emissary by Japanese author Yoko Tawada and translator Margaret Mitsutani. The novel takes place in Japan after a devastating disaster results in the country cutting itself off from the rest of the world.

Chilean author Isabel Allende was also honoured at the awards ceremony, receiving the lifetime achievement prize. Commenting that we live in "a dark time" in her acceptance speech, Allende dedicated her award to "millions of people like myself who have come to this country in search of a new life."

Allende spoke to Eleanor Wachtel on Writers & Company in 2010. You can listen to their conversation in the audio player below:

The National Book Awards were announced at an event hosted by actor Nick Offerman in New York City on Nov. 14, 2018. Judges considered 1,637 books submitted by publishers this year. The National Book Awards began in 1950.