Here are the winners of the 2026 Kirkus Prize.
Tonight, at a ceremony in New York City, Kirkus Reviews announced the winners of the 13th annual Kirkus Prize, which awards $50,000 to “books of exceptional merit” in three categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, and Young Readers’ Literature. The winners were chosen from the pool of books that have received a Kirkus star over the past year: 3,584 fiction titles, 2,806 nonfiction titles, and 3,936 young readers’ titles. Long, a Kirkus reviewer and former manager of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards; and Kirkus fiction editor Laurie Muchnick.
