Fiction contenders include Brit Bennett, the author of “The Vanishing Half”; Randall Kenan, a beloved writer who died in August; and Douglas Stuart, a debut novelist who is also a Booker Prize finalist.

Two acclaimed debut novels and a story collection whose author died last month are among the 10 fiction contenders for this year’s National Book Award.

“If I Had Two Wings,” by Randall Kenan, who died at 57 in August, is one of two short story collections on the list, along with “The Secret Lives of Church Ladies,” by Deesha Philyaw.

Rumaan Alam’s third novel, “Leave the World Behind,” about a disconcerting family vacation set against the backdrop of an eerie societal disaster, also made the longlist, as did Brit Bennett’s “The Vanishing Half,” about twin Black sisters who decide to take very different paths through life.

Wilderson III’s “Afropessimism” and Karla Cornejo Villavicencio’s “The Undocumented Americans” were among the nonfiction titles that also made the list.

Villavicencio’s book, her first, a “captivating and evocative” mixture of memoir and reportage by one of the first undocumented students to be accepted to Harvard University.

Perumal Murugan’s “The Story of a Goat” is one of the nominees in the translated literature category.

The Times critic Parul Sehgal wrote that the new novel “examines the oppressions of caste and colorism, government surveillance, the abuse of women — all cunningly folded into the biography of an unhappy little goat.” Not among the contenders is the Dutch novelist Marieke Lucas Rijneveld’s “The Discomfort of Evening,” translated by Michele Hutchison and named the winner of this year’s International Booker Prize in August6

Brit Bennett, “The Vanishing Half”.

Deesha Philyaw, “The Secret Lives of Church Ladies”

Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, “The Undocumented Americans”

Les Payne and Tamara Payne, “The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X”

Translated from the Swedish by Rachel Willson-Broyles

Perumal Murugan, “The Story of a Goat”

Translated from the Tamil by N

Translated from the Korean by Jamie Chang

Translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman

Translated from the Arabic by Elisabeth Jaquette