| Kirkus Prize | |
| Presenter: | Kirkus Reviews |
| Date: | Annual |
| Country: | United States |
The Kirkus Prize is an American literary award conferred by the book review magazine Kirkus Reviews. Established in 2014, the Kirkus Prize bestows annually. Three authors are awarded each, divided into three categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, and Young Readers' Literature.[1] It has been described as one of the most lucrative prizes in literature.[2] [3]
Books reviewed by Kirkus Reviews that have received the Kirkus Star are automatically eligible for the Kirkus Prize and are selected for nomination. The eligibility dates of publication for books is typically between November 1 of the previous year and October 31 of the current year, with few exceptions. Self-published books that have earned the Kirkus Star are eligible for the Kirkus Prize. However, self-published books are not eligible based on their date of publication but rather the date of publication of their online review by Kirkus Reviews. All books must first be reviewed by Kirkus Reviews to be considered.[4]
The Prize is divided into three categories: the Kirkus Prize for Fiction, the Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction and the Kirkus Prize for Young Readers' Literature. Each category is judged by a panel of three judges: a writer, a bookseller or librarian, and a Kirkus Reviews critic. The editors and staff of Kirkus Reviews evaluate each of the nominated books, conducting a first round of eliminations. The panels of judges then decide upon six finalists in each of the three categories. In the Young Readers' Literature category, the six finalists include two picture books, two middle-grade books and two teen books. The three winners are announced at a ceremony. The prize money for books with multiple authors and illustrators is divided fairly as decided by the Prize's judges and administrators.[4]
| Year | Author | Book | Result | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | Euphoria | Winner | [5] [6] | |
| Finalist | [7] | |||
| All Our Names | ||||
| Florence Gordon | ||||
| 2015 | Winner | [8] [9] | ||
| Finalist | [10] | |||
Stephen Emerson | ||||
| Fates and Furies | ||||
Christina MacSweeney | ||||
| 2016 | Winner | [11] [12] | ||
| Imagine Me Gone | Finalist | |||
| Carousel Court | ||||
| Barkskins | ||||
| 2017 | What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky | Winner | [13] [14] | |
| Exit West | Finalist | |||
| White Tears | ||||
| Her Body and Other Parties | ||||
| Sing, Unburied, Sing | ||||
| 2018 | Severance | Winner | [15] [16] | |
| Halsey Street | Finalist | |||
| Florida | ||||
Lisa Dillman Daniel Hahn | Mourning | |||
| Heads of the Colored People | ||||
| Tell the Machine Goodnight | ||||
| 2019 | Winner | [17] [18] | ||
| Cantoras | Finalist | [19] | ||
| Lost Children Archive | ||||
Geraldine Harcourt | Territory of Light | |||
| On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous | ||||
| 2020 | Luster | Winner | [20] [21] | |
| Black Sunday | Finalist | |||
| Fiebre Tropical | ||||
Ann Goldstein | ||||
| Deacon King Kong | ||||
| Shuggie Bain | ||||
| 2021 | Harrow | Winner | [22] [23] | |
Megan McDowell | Finalist | [24] | ||
| My Monticello | ||||
David Hackston | Bolla | |||
| Harlem Shuffle | ||||
| 2022 | Trust | Winner | [25] [26] | |
| Scary Monsters | Finalist | [27] | ||
| God's Children Are Little Broken Things | ||||
| Mecca | ||||
Margaret Mitsutani | Scattered All Over the Earth | |||
Jennifer Croft | ||||
| 2023 | Winner | [28] [29] | ||
| Witness | Finalist | [30] [31] | ||
| Birnam Wood | ||||
| White Cat, Black Dog | ||||
| Let Us Descend | ||||
| 2024 | James | Winner | [32] [33] | |
| Say Hello to My Little Friend | Finalist | [34] [35] | ||
| The Mighty Red | ||||
| Prophet Song | ||||
| Playground | ||||
| Margo's Got Money Troubles | ||||
| 2025 | Lucas Schaefer | The Slip | Winner | [36] [37] |
| Kiran Desai | The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny | Finalist | [38] | |
| Angela Flournoy | The Wilderness | |||
| Allegra Goodman | Isola | |||
| Megha Majumdar | A Guardian and a Thief | |||
| David Szalay | Flesh |
| Year | Author | Book | Result | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? | Winner | ||
| Jonathan Swift: His Life and His World | Finalist | |||
Arthur Goldhammer | Capital in the Twenty-First Century | |||
| Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption | ||||
| 2015 | Between the World and Me | Winner | ||
| Whirlwind: The American Revolution and the War That Won It | Finalist | |||
| H is for Hawk | ||||
| Pacific: Silicon Chips and Surfboards, Coral Reefs and Atom Bombs, Brutal Dictators, Fading Empires, and the Coming Collision of the World's Superpowers | ||||
| 2016 | In the Darkroom | Winner | ||
| At the Existentialist Café: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails | Finalist | |||
| Truevine: Two Brothers, a Kidnapping, and a Mother's Quest: A True Story of the Jim Crow South | ||||
| Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis | ||||
| 2017 | Winner | |||
| Finalist | ||||
| Priestdaddy: A Memoir | ||||
Lizzie Davis | Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions | |||
| Henry David Thoreau: A Life | ||||
| 2018 | Call Them by Their True Names: American Crises (and Essays) | Winner | ||
| American Prison: A Reporter's Undercover Journey into the Business of Punishment | Finalist | |||
| Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America | ||||
| Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth | ||||
| 2019 | How We Fight for Our Lives: A Memoir | Winner | ||
| Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest | Finalist | |||
Denise Newman | When Death Takes Something from You Give It Back: Carl's Book | |||
| Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland | ||||
What Immigrants Never Tell You | ||||
| No Visible Bruises: What We Don't Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us | ||||
| 2020 | Stakes Is High: Life After the American Dream | Winner | ||
The Five-Hundred-Year History of America's Hurricanes | Finalist | |||
| Fathoms: The World in the Whale | ||||
What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power | ||||
Fumi Nakamura | World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments | |||
| 2021 | Winner | |||
| People Love Dead Jews: Reports From a Haunted Present | Finalist | |||
| All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake | ||||
| Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness | ||||
| Lightning Flowers: My Journey to Uncover the Cost of Saving a Life | ||||
Alfred MacAdam | Horizontal Vertigo: A City Called Mexico | |||
| 2022 | Tanaïs | In Sensorium | Winner | |
| By Hands Now Known | Finalist | [39] | ||
| The Facemaker | ||||
Caitlin Roper Ilena Silverman Jake Silverstein | The 1619 Project | |||
| These Precious Days | ||||
| An Immense World | ||||
| 2023 | Héctor Tobar | Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on the Meanings and Myths of "Latino" | Winner | |
| Red Memory: The Afterlives of China's Cultural Revolution | Finalist | |||
| Mr. B: George Balanchine's 20th Century | ||||
| How Not to Kill Yourself: A Portrait of the Suicidal Mind | ||||
| How to Say Babylon: A Memoir | ||||
| Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey From Slavery to Freedom | ||||
| 2024 | Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space | Winner | ||
| The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the CIA, and the Origins of America's Invasion of Iraq | Finalist | |||
| Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir | ||||
| The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise | ||||
| Undue Burden: Life and Death Decisions in Post-Roe America | ||||
| Another Word for Love: A Memoir | ||||
| 2025 | Scott Anderson | King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation | Winner | |
| Nicholas Boggs | Baldwin: A Love Story | Finalist | ||
| Sophie Elmhirst | A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck | |||
| Greg Grandin | America, América: A New History of the New World | |||
| Imani Perry | Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People | |||
| Arundhati Roy | Mother Mary Comes to Me |
| Year | Author | Book | Result | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | Aviary Wonders Inc.: Spring Catalog and Instruction Manual | Winner | ||
| El Deafo | Finalist | |||
Melissa Sweet | ||||
| Jack Gantos | ||||
| E. K. Johnston | ||||
| Don Mitchell | ||||
| 2015 | Dinara Mirtalipova | Echo | Winner | |
| Finalist | ||||
| Shadowshaper | ||||
| Funny Bones: Posada and His Day of the Dead Calaveras | ||||
Shane W. Evans | Lillian's Right to Vote: A Celebration of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 | |||
| 2016 | As Brave as You | Winner | ||
Yuyi Morales | Thunder Boy Jr. | Finalist | ||
| Freedom Over Me: Eleven Slaves, Their Lives and Dreams Brought to Life by Ashley Bryan | ||||
| We Will Not Be Silent: The White Rose Student Resistance Movement That Defied Adolf Hitler | ||||
| Burn Baby Burn | ||||
| 2017 | Winner | |||
Rafael Yockteng Elisa Amado | Walk with Me | Finalist | ||
Helen Wang Meilo So | Bronze and Sunflower | |||
| It All Comes Down to This | ||||
Madeleine Stratford | Me Tall, You Small | |||
| 2018 | Gordon C. James | Winner | ||
| Finalist | ||||
| Children of Blood and Bone | ||||
| Merci Suárez Changes Gears | ||||
| Dreamers | ||||
| Harbor Me | ||||
| 2019 | Jim Callahan | New Kid | Winner | |
Kadir Nelson | Finalist | |||
Lauren Castillo | Imagine | |||
| On the Come Up | ||||
Rosalind Harvey | Stories of Central American Teen Refugees Who Dream of Crossing the Border | |||
| Genesis Begins Again | ||||
| 2020 | Gordon C. James | I Am Every Good Thing | Winner | |
| Clap When You Land | Finalist | |||
| Fighting Words | ||||
Michaela Goade | We Are Water Protectors | |||
| and Jason Reynolds | Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You | |||
| 2021 | All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys' Soccer Team | Winner | ||
| Finalist | ||||
| Legacy: Women Poets of the Harlem Renaissance | ||||
Jacqueline Alcántara | Your Mama | |||
Floyd Cooper | ||||
| 2022 | Himawari House | Winner | ||
Anna Margrethe Kjærgaard Sinéad Quirke Køngerskov | Coffee, Rabbit, Snowdrop, Lost | Finalist | ||
| How You Grow Wings | ||||
Rafael López | ||||
| 2023 | America Redux: Visual Stories from Our Dynamic History | Winner | ||
Kaylani Juanita | Together We Swim | Finalist | ||
| The Eternal Return of Clara Hart | ||||
Tom de Freston | Julia and the Shark | |||
| The Skull: A Tyrolean Folktale | ||||
Daniel Hahn | João by a Thread | |||
| 2024 | Gather | Winner | ||
| Bright Red Fruit | Finalist | |||
| We Who Produce Pearls | ||||
| Safiyyah's War | ||||
| There Was a Party for Langston | ||||
| Shark Teeth | ||||
| 2025 | Thao Lam | Everybelly | Winner | |
| Derrick Barnes | The Incredibly Human Henson Blayze | Finalist | ||
| Triinu Laan Marja-Liisa Plats Adam Cullen | John the Skeleton | |||
| Moa Backe Åstot Agnes Broomé | Butterfly Heart | |||
| Candace Fleming | Death in the Jungle: Murder, Betrayal and the Lost Dream of Jonestown | |||
| Brian Floca Sydney Smith | Island Storm |
