The American Library Association has revealed the winners of its 2026 Andrew Carnegie Medals, given annually to outstanding works of fiction and nonfiction.
Megha Majumdar won the fiction medal for her novel A Guardian and a Thief, about a woman in Kolkata who is planning to move to the U.S. with her family, and the man who steals her purse, which contains their immigration papers. In a starred review, a critic for Kirkus wrote of the novel, “This electrifying depiction of dignity and morality under siege reveals the horror hidden by the bland term ‘climate change.’” The novel was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize and the National Book Award.
The nonfiction medal went to Yiyun Li for her memoir Things in Nature Merely Grow, about the suicide of her second son, seven years after her first son took his life. A Kirkus reviewer wrote of the book, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, “As bleak as winter fog at dusk, suggesting that one goes on after tragedy only because there’s nothing else one can do.”
Lillian Dabney, the ALA’s selection committee chair, said in a statement, “Megha Majumdar’s intoxicating novel is filled with emotion and relevance to all people and all places across time. Yiyun Li has courageously put almost inexplicable events into words that will benefit all who encounter her book. I am profoundly fortunate to have been a part of this process and to have worked with such an incredibly gifted committee.”
The Andrew Carnegie Medals, which come with cash prizes of $5,000 each, were established in 2012. Previous winners include Donna Tartt for The Goldfinch, Percival Everett for James, Sally Mann for Hold Still, and Ed Yong for An Immense World. This year’s winners and finalists will be honored during an event at Chicago’s American Writers Museum in June.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
