The Night Watchman
- 2024 – Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips
- 2023 – Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
- 2023 – Trust by Hernan Diaz
- 2022 – The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen
- 2021 – The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich
- 2020 – The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
- 2019 – The Overstory by Richard Powers
- 2018 – Less by Andrew Sean Greer
- 2017 – The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
- 2016 – The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
- 2015 – All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
- 2014 – The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
- 2013 – The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson
- 2012 – no award
- 2011 – A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
- 2010 – Tinkers by Paul Harding
- 2009 – Olive Ketteridge by Elizabeth Strout
- 2008 – The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by j. Diaz
- 2007 – The Road by Cormac McCarthy
- 2006 – March by Geraldine Brooks
- 2005 – Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
- 2004 – The Known World by Edward P. Jones
- 2003 – Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
- 2002 – Empire Falls by Richard Russo
- 2001 – The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
- 2000 – Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
- 1999 – The Hours by Michael Cunningham
- 1998 – American Pastoral by Philip Roth
- 1997 – Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser
- 1996 – Independence Day by Richard Ford
- 1995 – The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
1994 – The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
1993 – A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler
1992 – A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
1991 – Rabbit at Rest by John Updike
1990 – The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos
1989 – Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler
1988 – Beloved by Toni Morrison
1987 – A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor
1986 – Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurray
1985 – Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie
1984 – Ironweed by William Kennedy
1983 – The Color Purple by Alice Walker
1982 – Rabbit is Rich by John Updike
1981 – A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
1980 – The Executioner’s Song by Norman Mailer
1979 – The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever
1978 – Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson
1977 – no award
1976 – Humboldt’s Gift by Saul Bellow
1975 – The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
1974 – no award
1973 – The Optimist’s Daughter by Eudora Welty
1972 – Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
1971 – no award
1970 – Collected Stories by Jean Stafford
1969 – House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday
1968 – The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styton
1967 – The Fixer by Bernard Malamud
1966 – Collected Stories by Katherine Anne Porter
1965 – The Keepers Of The House by Shirley Ann Gnau
1964 – no award
1963 – The Reivers by William Faulkner
1962 – The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O’Connor
1961 – To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
1960 – Advise and Consent by Allen Drury
1959 – The Travels of Jamie McPheeters by R.L. Taylor
1958 – A Death in the Family by James Agee
1957 – no award
1956 – Andersonville by MacKinley Kantor
1955 – A Fable by William Faulkner
1954 – no award
1953 – The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
1952 – The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
1951 – The Town by Conrad Richter
1950 – The Way West by A.B. Guthrie
1949 – Guard of Honor by James Gould Cozzens
1948 – Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener
1947 – All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren
1946 – no award
1945 – A Bell for Adorno by John Hersey
1944 – Journey in the Dark by Martin Flavin
1943 – Dragon’s Teeth by Upton Sinclair
1942 – In This Our Life by Ellen Glasgow
1941 – no award
1940 – The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
1939 – The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
1938 – The Late George Apley by John Philips Marquand
1937 – Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
1936 – Honey in the Horn by Harold L. Davis
1935 – Now in November by Josephine Winslow Johnson
1934 – Lamb in His Bosom by Caroline Miller
1933 – The Store by T.S. Stribling
1932 – The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
1931 – Years of Grace by Margaret Ayers Barnes
1930 – Laughing Boy by Oliver Lafarge
1929 – Scarlet Sister Mary by Julia Peterkin
1928 – The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
1927 – Early Autumn by Louis Broomfield
1926 – Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis
1925 – So Big by Edna Ferber
1924 – The Able McLaughlins by Margaret Wilson
1923 – One of Ours by Willa Carther
1922 – Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington
1921 – The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
1920 – no award
1919 – The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington
1918 – His Family by Ernest Poole
