The winners of the 2026 Locus Awards, given annually to outstanding works of science fiction, fantasy, and horror, were announced Saturday at the Bay Area Book Festival in California.
Nnedi Okorafor took home the science fiction novel prize for Death of the Author, which previously won an NAACP Image Award and a Libby Award. The fantasy novel award went to Alix E. Harrow for The Everlasting.
Stephen Graham Jones won the horror novel prize for The Buffalo Hunter Hunter; the author previously won the award for My Heart Is a Chainsaw. Yoon Ha Lee took home the young adult novel prize for Starstrike, marking the third time the writer won the award, following Dragon Pearl and Moonstorm.
The first novel prize went to Natalia Theodoridou for Sour Cherry, while the translated novel award was given to On the Calculation of Volume: Book III, written by Solvej Balle and translated by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell. Winning the novella prize was Amal El-Mohtar for The River Has Roots.
The Locus Awards were established in 1971. Previous winners include Michael Chabon for The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, Charlie Jane Anders for All the Birds in the Sky, and Silvia Moreno-Garcia for Mexican Gothic. A full list of this year’s winners is available at the Locus Awards website.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
