The winners of the 2023 Kirkus Prize in the categories of Fiction, Nonfiction and Young Readers’ Literature were announced on October 11th in a hybrid ceremony at the Tribeca Rooftop in New York that also was live-streamed on YouTube. This year’s winners were chosen from the 10,794 titles --- published between November 1, 2022 and October 31, 2023 (for Fiction and Nonfiction), and October 1, 2022 and September 30, 2023 (for Young Readers’ Literature) --- that were reviewed by Kirkus.

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.
 

2023 Winners

FICTION

• THE HEAVEN & EARTH GROCERY STORE by James McBride (Riverhead)

 
NONFICTION

• OUR MIGRANT SOULS: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of "Latino," by Héctor Tobar (MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

 
YOUNG READERS’ LITERATURE

• AMERICA REDUX: Visual Stories from Our Dynamic History, by Ariel Aberg-Riger (Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins)
   

2023 Finalists

FICTION

• WITNESS: Stories, by Jamel Brinkley (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• BIRNAM WOOD by Eleanor Catton (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• WHITE CAT, BLACK DOG: Stories, by Kelly Link (Random House)
• THE HEAVEN & EARTH GROCERY STORE by James McBride (Riverhead)
• THE BEE STING by Paul Murray (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• LET US DESCEND by Jesmyn Ward (Scribner)

 
NONFICTION

• RED MEMORY: The Afterlives of China's Cultural Revolution, by Tania Branigan (W. W. Norton)
• MR. B: George Balanchine's 20th Century, by Jennifer Homans (Random House)
• HOW NOT TO KILL YOURSELF: A Portrait of the Suicidal Mind, by Clancy Martin (Pantheon)
• HOW TO SAY BABYLON: A Memoir, by Safiya Sinclair (Simon & Schuster)
• OUR MIGRANT SOULS: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of "Latino," by Héctor Tobar (MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• MASTER SLAVE HUSBAND WIFE: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom, by Ilyon Woo (Simon & Schuster)

 
YOUNG READERS’ LITERATURE
 
Picture Books

• TOGETHER WE SWIM by Valerie Bolling, illustrated by Kaylani Juanita (Chronicle Books)
• JOÃO BY A THREAD by Roger Mello, translated by Daniel Hahn (Elsewhere Editions)

Middle Grade

• JULIA AND THE SHARK by Kiran Millwood Hargrave, illustrated by Tom de Freston (Union Square Kids)
• THE SKULL: A Tyrolean Folktale, by Jon Klassen (Candlewick)

Young Adult

• AMERICA REDUX: Visual Stories from Our Dynamic History, by Ariel Aberg-Riger (Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins)
• THE ETERNAL RETURN OF CLARA HART by Louise Finch (Little Island)