During an online event hosted by the Austin Central Library, Kirkus Reviews, the nation’s leading prepublication journal of book reviews, announced the winners of the eighth 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.
 

2021 Winners

FICTION
HARROW by Joy Williams (Knopf)

NONFICTION
PUNCH ME UP TO THE GODS: A Memoir, by Brian Broome (Mariner Books)

YOUNG READERS’ LITERATURE
ALL THIRTEEN: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys’ Soccer Team, by Christina Soontornvat (Candlewick)
 

2021 Finalists

FICTION

• THE DANGERS OF SMOKING IN BED by Mariana Enríquez, translated by Megan McDowell (Hogarth)
• THE LOVE SONGS OF W.E.B. DU BOIS by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers (Harper)
• MY MONTICELLO by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson (Henry Holt)
• BOLLA by Pajtim Statovci, translated by David Hackston (Pantheon)
• HARLEM SHUFFLE by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday)
• HARROW by Joy Williams (Knopf)

 
NONFICTION

• PUNCH ME UP TO THE GODS: A Memoir, by Brian Broome (Mariner Books)
• PEOPLE LOVE DEAD JEWS: Reports from a Haunted Present, by Dara Horn (W. W. Norton)
• ALL THAT SHE CARRIED: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake, by Tiya Miles (Random House)
• SEEK YOU: A Journey Through American Loneliness, written and illustrated by Kristen Radtke (Pantheon)
• LIGHTNING FLOWERS: My Journey to Uncover the Cost of Saving a Life, by Katherine E. Standefer (Little, Brown Spark)
• HORIZONTAL VERTIGO: A City Called Mexico, by Juan Villoro, translated Alfred MacAdam (Pantheon)

 
YOUNG READERS’ LITERATURE
 
Picture Books

• YOUR MAMA by NoNieqa Ramos, illustrated by Jacqueline Alcántara (Versify/HarperCollins)
• UNSPEAKABLE: The Tulsa Race Massacre, by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by Floyd Cooper (Carolrhoda)

Middle Grade

• LEGACY: Women Poets of the Harlem Renaissance, by Nikki Grimes and 19 illustrators (Bloomsbury)
• ALL THIRTEEN: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys’ Soccer Team, by Christina Soontornvat (Candlewick)

Young Adult

• THE SURPRISING POWER OF A GOOD DUMPLING by Wai Chim (Scholastic)
• THE LIFE I'M IN by Sharon G. Flake (Scholastic)