The Kirkus Prize, one of the richest annual literary awards in the world, has announced its list of finalists for 2024. The award is given to three titles that received a starred review from Kirkus on publication. A panel of bright book people and Kirkus editors select the finalist pool, and then winners in three categories—fiction, nonfiction, and children’s literature—each receive a healthy prize of $50,000.
Here are this year’s finalists.
Fiction
Jennine Capó Crucet, Say Hello to My Little Friend (Simon & Schuster)
Louise Erdrich, The Mighty Red (Harper/HarperCollins)
Percival Everett, James (Doubleday)
Richard Powers, Playground (Doubleday)
Rufi Thorpe, Margot’s Got Money Troubles (William Morrow/HarperCollins)
Paul Lynch, Prophet Song (Grove)
The jurors for this year’s Fiction prize are Christine Bollow, the co-owner and director of programs for Loyalty Bookstores in the DMV, Jeffrey Burke, a former editor at Harper’s, and Kirkus fiction editor Laurie Muchnick.
Nonfiction
Steve Coll, The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the CIA, and the Origins of America’s Invasion of Iraq (The Penguin Press)
Adam Higginbotham, Challenger: A True Story of Heroism And Disaster on the Edge of Space (Avid Reader Press)
Tessa Hulls, Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir (MCD/FSG)
Olivia Laing, The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise (W.W. Norton)
Shefali Luthra, Undue Burden: Life and Death Decisions in Post-Roe America (Doubleday)
Carvell Wallace, Another Word for Love: A Memoir (MCD/FSG)
The jurors for the Nonfiction prize are journalist and author/illustrator Hannah Bae, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Mary Ann Gwinn, and Kirkus editor-in-chief Tom Beer.
Young Readers
Picture Books
Joanna Ho, illustrated by Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya, We Who Produce Pearls (Scholastic/Orchard)
Jason Reynolds, illustrated by Jerome Pumphrey and Jarrett Pumphrey, There Was a Party for Langston (Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum)
Middle Grade
Hiba Noor Khan, Safiyyah’s War (Allida/HarperCollins)
Sherri Winston, Shark Teeth (Bloomsbury)
Young Adult
Kenneth M. Cadow, Gather (Candlewick)
Safia Elhillo, Bright Red Fruit (Random House/Make Me a World)
The jurors for the Young Readers’ Literature prize are Christopher A. Biss-Brown, curator of the Children’s Literature Research Collection at the Free Library of Philadelphia, Michelle H. Martin, the Beverly Cleary Endowed Professor in Children and Youth Services in the Information School at the University of Washington, and Kirkus young readers’ editors Mahnaz Dar and Laura Simeon.
Kirkus editor-in-chief Tom Beer says of this year’s titles, “they’re all books that speak to our time, and we know they’ll be read for years to come.”
The three 2024 Kirkus Prize winners will be announced at an in-person ceremony in New York on Wednesday, October 16.
Congratulations to all the finalists!
