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.

“Readers can rejoice over the winners of this year’s Kirkus Prize; these are remarkably accomplished works of fiction and nonfiction that nevertheless wear their accomplishments lightly,” said Kirkus Reviews editor-in-chief Tom Beer in a statement. “Above all, they are unforgettable books that will engage and transform all who enter their pages.”

Citation: Niecy and Annie are “cradle friends.” Born in small-town Louisiana in the 1950s, they share an unhappy bond, both having lost their mothers. In a powerfully compelling novel that brims with the cadences of the Black South, Jones explores the women’s diverging lives while using them as a lens to observe social injustice in language that is intimate, conversational, and musical.

Finalists: Daniyal Mueenuddin, This Is Where the Serpent Lives (Knopf); Brenda Navarro, trans. by Megan McDowell, Eating Ashes (Liveright/Norton); Julie Orringer, Luna, Phoenix, Queen (Knopf); Douglas Stuart, John of John (Grove); Colson Whitehead, Cool Machine (Doubleday)

The jurors for the 2026 Kirkus Prize in Fiction are Kimberly Brock, adult book buyer at Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Cincinnati; Karen R. Long, a Kirkus reviewer and former manager of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards; and Kirkus fiction editor Laurie Muchnick.

Pamela Colloff, Catch the Devil: A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast (Knopf)

Citation: In 1987, Jim Dailey was convicted of the brutal murder of a 14-year-old girl, Shelly Boggio. However, as Pamela Colloff reveals in her taut and engrossing investigation, a scheming jailhouse snitch’s testimony was largely responsible for putting Dailey on death row for decades. Even more damning, though, is Colloff’s exposure of a criminal justice system that is all too happy to look the other way in cutting deals that can have devastating consequences.

Finalists: Ada Ferrer, Keeper of My Kin: Memoir of an Immigrant Daughter (Scribner); Patrick Radden Keefe, London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family’s Search for Truth (Doubleday); Loubna Mrie, Defiance: A Memoir of Awakening, Rebellion, and Survival in Syria (Viking); Gisèle Pelicot with Judith Perrignon, trans. by Natasha Lehrer & Ruth Diver, A Hymn to Life: Shame Has To Change Sides (Penguin Press); Michael Pollan, A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness (Penguin Press)