Literary Awards

News

Who Reads for the Children's Booker? Actual Children.

The new Children's Booker Prize has named its judges—including three child jurors aged 8-12 who will actually vote for the winner. A £50,000 prize decided in part by its own intended audience.

News

Daniel Kraus Wins the 2026 Pulitzer for Fiction: Genre's Finest Hour

Daniel Kraus wins the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction with Angel Down. Yiyun Li takes the memoir prize for Things in Nature Merely Grow. A year of unexpected choices.

News

The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction Will Be Announced Monday. Here Are the Contenders.

On May 4, the Pulitzer Board names its Fiction winner. Karen Russell's The Antidote is the frontrunner, but Susan Choi, Kiran Desai, and others make this the most interesting field in years.

News

Who Best Judges Children's Books? The Booker Has an Answer

The Booker Prize Foundation has announced its first ever Children's Booker Prize, to be awarded in 2027, with child judges on the panel. Why this matters more than it might seem.

Reviews

The Snail, Ukraine, and Everything We're Trying to Save: Maria Reva Wins the Aspen Words Prize

Maria Reva wins the 2026 Aspen Words Literary Prize with Endling — a novel about two sisters searching for their missing activist mother in Ukraine and a scientist racing to save an endangered snail species. The jury called it audacious. They're right.

News

The 2026 Hugo Finalists Are Here, and Speculative Fiction Has Never Been This Contested

The 2026 Hugo Award finalists span ecological horror, epic fantasy, literary SF, and a Hunger Games prequel — six novels making the case that genre boundaries are largely fictional. Winners announced August 30 at LAcon V in Anaheim.

News

NYPL Announces the 2026 Young Lions Fiction Award Finalists

Five emerging writers under 35 are in contention for one of American fiction's most beloved debut prizes. The winner will be announced June 15.

Literature

Four Debuts and a Prize: The 2026 Women's Prize for Fiction Shortlist

The Women's Prize for Fiction 2026 shortlist arrives with four debut novels among six finalists — a signal that something is opening up in literary fiction written by women.

Literature

Five Voices Shortlisted for the 2026 Carol Shields Prize

The 2026 Carol Shields Prize shortlist is out — five bold books by women and nonbinary writers competing for $150,000 CAD. Megha Majumdar, Quiara Alegría Hudes, and three more.

Literature

Four Debuts, Four Anisfield-Wolf Prizes: New Voices Already Essential

The 2026 Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards honoured four debut works exploring race and human diversity. Every winner is a first-time author — which, in this publishing market, is also a statement.

News

The L.A. Times Festival Crowns Bryan Washington and Honours Amy Tan: A Night for Good Books

The Los Angeles Times Book Prizes awarded fiction to Bryan Washington for Palaver and the lifetime achievement honour to Amy Tan. A prize list as varied as the city that produced it.

Literature

When Writing Is Both Sentence and Liberation: The 2026 Writing Freedom Fellows

Twenty writers whose lives have intersected with the criminal legal system are named as the 2026 Writing Freedom Fellows. A reminder that literature survives in the smallest rooms.