At a special ceremony at the Austin Public Library in Austin, Texas, Kirkus Reviews, the nation’s leading prepublication journal of book reviews, announced the winners of the sixth annual Kirkus Prize in the categories of fiction, nonfiction and young readers’ literature.

The Kirkus Prize was created in 2014 to celebrate the discerning, thoughtful criticism that Kirkus Reviews has contributed to both the publishing industry and readers at large since it was founded in 1933. For more information about Kirkus Reviews and the Kirkus Prize, please click here.

2019 Winners

FICTION:
THE NICKEL BOYS by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday)

NONFICTION:
HOW WE FIGHT FOR OUR LIVES: A Memoir, by Saeed Jones (Simon & Schuster)

YOUNG READERS’ LITERATURE:
NEW KID written and illustrated by Jerry Craft (HarperCollins)

2019 Finalists

FICTION:

• CANTORAS by Carolina De Robertis (Knopf)
• THE OTHER AMERICANS by Laila Lalami (Pantheon)
• LOST CHILDREN ARCHIVE by Valeria Luiselli (Knopf)
• TERRITORY OF LIGHT by Yuko Tsushima, translated by Geraldine Harcourt (FSG)
• ON EARTH WE'RE BRIEFLY GORGEOUS by Ocean Vuong (Penguin Press)
• THE NICKEL BOYS by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday)

 
NONFICTION:

• GO AHEAD IN THE RAIN: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest, by Hanif Abdurraqib (University of Texas Press)
• WHEN DEATH TAKES SOMETHING FROM YOU GIVE IT BACK: Carl’s Book, by Naja Marie Aidt, translated by Denise Newman (Coffee House Press)
• HOW WE FIGHT FOR OUR LIVES: A Memoir, by Saeed Jones (Simon & Schuster)
• SAY NOTHING: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, by Patrick Radden Keefe (Doubleday)
• THE UNGRATEFUL REFUGEE: What Immigrants Never Tell You, by Dina Nayeri (Catapult)
• NO VISIBLE BRUISES: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us, by Rachel Louise Snyder (Bloomsbury Publishing)

 
YOUNG READERS’ LITERATURE:
 
Picture Books:

• THE UNDEFEATED by Kwame Alexander, illustrated by Kadir Nelson (Versify/HMH)
• IMAGINE by Juan Felipe Herrera, illustrated by Lauren Castillo (Candlewick)

Middle Grade:

• NEW KID written and illustrated by Jerry Craft (HarperCollins)
• GENESIS BEGINS AGAIN by Alicia D. Williams (Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum)

Young Adult:

• ON THE COME UP by Angie Thomas (Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins)
• THE OTHER SIDE: Stories of Central American Teen Refugees Who Dream of Crossing the Border, by Juan Pablo Villalobos, translated by Rosalind Harvey (FSG)