Bret Stephens critique the National Book Awards longlists, noting nearly all 20 fiction and nonfiction authors are straight white males on the political right. He inverts this data to highlight the opposite scenario—if the literary world honored minority voices instead, it would mirror current diversity efforts. Stephens argues the National Book Foundation has shifted into a D.

E. I. checklist, with 9 of the past 10 fiction and 10 of 10 nonfiction winners belonging to minority groups. He cites authors like Edwidge Danticat, Julián Delgado Lopera, and Valeria Luiselli, whose works focus on identity and social issues.

The 2026 nonfiction winner was a book stemming from an anti-Israel social media post. Stephens questions whether the left's politicization of the arts is any more acceptable than the right's.