The American Library Association has revealed the shortlists for its 2026 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction, “awarded for the previous year’s best fiction and nonfiction books written for adult readers and published in the United States.”
A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar made the fiction shortlist; it was also a finalist for the National Book Award and the Kirkus Prize. Also named finalists for the Carnegie Medal were We Do Not Part, written by South Korean Nobel laureate Han Kang and translated by e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris, and The Unworthy, written by Argentine author Agustina Bazterrica and translated by Sarah Moses.
Things in Nature Merely Grow, the memoir by Yiyun Li that was also a National Book Award finalist, made the nonfiction shortlist, alongside There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America by Brian Goldstone and Baldwin, Styron, and Me, written by Canadian author Mélikah Abdelmoumen and translated by Catherine Khordoc.
The Carnegie Medals, which come with a cash prize of $5,000, were established in 2012. Previous winners include Viet Thanh Nguyen for The Sympathizer, Amanda Peters for The Berry Pickers, Sally Mann for Hold Still: A Memoir With Photographs, and Hanif Abdurraqib for A Little Devil in America: In Praise of Black Performance.
The prize winners will be announced on Jan. 27, 2026.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
