[ Read The Times’ review of “Sabrina” ]

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Graphic novels have previously been nominated for — and won — the National Book Award, the American equivalent of the Booker. But they have never been nominated for the main fiction category in either the United States or in Britain, despite many achieving critical and commercial success. If Mr. Drnaso wins, it would be the biggest moment for the graphic format since Art Spiegelman’s “Maus” won a special Pulitzer Prize in 1992.

“Sabrina” is the story of a murder in Colorado, but focuses on the internet rumors and conspiracy theories that emerge around it and the impact on those left behind. “It’s an unnerving mystery told by a rigorous moralist, a profoundly American nightmare set squarely in the first year of the Trump presidency,” wrote Ed Park in The New York Times Book Review. “It’s a shattering work of art.”

The Guardian said that reading the novel “is an experience akin to watching a movie. It’s as if the lights have gone down: absorbed and gripped, the skin prickles.”

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“Of course it was in our minds that this is the first,” said Kwame Anthony Appiah, the chairman of the judges, in a telephone interview. “But when the right novel comes along and it’s in your 13 favorites, you put it in the list.”