The NIN Award (Serbian: Ninova nagrada, Нинова награда), officially called the Award for Best Novel of the Year, is an important Serbian (and earlier Yugoslavian) literary prize. It was created in 1954 by the NIN weekly magazine and is given every year to the best newly published novel written in Serbian (earlier in Serbo-Croatian). A group of writers and critics choose the winner each January. This award is highly respected and can greatly influence a writer’s career. Winning the award often makes a book very popular. In 2012, a literary website called it the "leading Serbian literary prize."

From 1954 to 1957, the award was given to the best novel published in Yugoslavia, no matter what language it was written in. However, all winning books during this time were written in Serbo-Croatian. Starting in 1958, only novels written in Serbo-Croatian were allowed to compete. Beginning in 2012, only novels written in Serbian were eligible, regardless of where they were published.

Winners

Since the award began, it was not given only once in 1959 because the jury believed no candidates met the standards. Oskar Davičo is the only person to win the award three times (in 1956, 1963, and 1964) and the only one to win it in two years in a row. Other authors who have won twice include Dobrica Ćosić, Živojin Pavlović, Dragan Velikić, and most recently, Svetislav Basara. To date, seven women have received the award.

In 1978, Danilo Kiš became the first person to return the award. He gave back the award for Novel of the Year 1972 and asked his name to be removed from the list of winners. In 1992, Milisav Savić returned the award he had received a month earlier for 1991 because he was upset about an article about him published in NIN on February 7, 1992.

One well-known person who never won the award is Ivo Andrić, the only Yugoslavian winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Andrić was considered for the NIN award in 1954 for Prokleta avlija, but the jury did not accept the book because they classified it as a novella, not a novel.

In January 2020, 18 writers published a letter asking people to stop participating in the NIN award. They said the jury was "professionally and morally incompetent" and argued the jury was not made up of critics who regularly review Serbian novels. Among those who signed the letter were two former winners (Vuksanović and Tabašević), one former jury member (Vladušić), and some writers who competed that year but were not chosen as finalists. Jury president Teofil Pančić and former winner Filip David said the signers were part of the "nationalistic elite" and were influenced by politics. Former winner Aleksandar Gatalica joined the boycott in 2021. After all jury members were replaced, the boycott ended in 2024 when two signers competed again, one of them (Bazdulj) even becoming a finalist. Some signers stopped the boycott earlier, with Franja Petrinović competing in 2020 and Laura Barna in 2023.