Zadie Smith and Michael Chabon nominated for book critics award

Ann Patchett, Michael Chabon and Zadie Smith are among the nominees for the National Book Critics Circle awards in the US.

Books by Louise Erdrich and the former US poet laureate Robert Pinsky were also among 30 finalists in six categories (autobiography, biography, fiction, nonfiction, poetry and criticism) selected by the organisation yesterday.

Margaret Atwood, the Canadian author of novels including The Handmaid’s Tale and Cat’s Eye, will receive a lifetime achievement prize. Honorary awards will go to Yaa Gyasi for best debut novel, Homegoing, and Guardian writer Michelle Dean for excellence in reviewing. The winners will be announced on 16 March.

Patchett’s Commonwealth, Chabon’s Moonglow and Smith’s Swing Time were all fiction finalists, along with Erdrich’s LaRose and Adam Haslett’s Imagine Me Gone.

Smith was among a select few writers who had lunch this month with the outgoing US president Barack Obama, the New York Times reported. It added that Obama talked to the novelists “about the political and media landscape, but also talked shop, asking how their book tours were going and remarking that he likes to write first drafts, long hand, on yellow legal pads”.

Last year, the winner of the fiction prize was Peter Beatty for his novel The Sellout.