This morning, Kirkus Reviews announced the 18 finalists for the 2026 Kirkus Prize, which recognizes excellence in the categories of Fiction, Nonfiction, and Young Readers’ Literature. Books are selected by a panel of peers, editors, and other industry professionals.
Winners in all three categories will receive $50,000 each, making the Kirkus Prize one of the richest annual literary awards in the world. Previous winners of the coveted award include Lily King’s Euphoria, Héctor Tobar’s Our Migrant Souls, and Percival Everett’s James.
This year’s finalists were chosen from a whopping total of 8,280 eligible titles. Of the bumper crop, Kirkus Reviews editor-in-chief Tom Beer said, “This year’s slate of prize finalists takes readers around the globe while exploring the deepest, most private recesses of the human mind, offering profound windows onto human experience. Each book is beautifully written and/or illustrated, brilliantly conceived, and compulsively readable.”
Here are the finalists:
FICTION:
