It’s book award season, and fresh off the heel of yesterday’s 2026 Youth Media Awards, the American Library Association (ALA) has announced the winners of this year’s Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction.
The winners of the 2026 awards are:
- “A Guardian and a Thief” by Megha Majumdar, published by Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House, recipient of the 2026 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction
- “Things in Nature Merely Grow” by Yiyun Li, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, a division of Macmillan, recipient of the 2026 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction.
The two winners had been feted extensively prior to winning the Carnegie Medals. “A Guardian and a Thief” was selected for Oprah’s Book Club and was a finalist for the 2025 National Book Award for fiction. “Things in Nature Merely Grow” (along with Majumdar’s novel) was named one of 100 notable books of 2025 by the New York Times and was a finalist for the 2025 National Book Award for Nonfiction.
Established in 2012, the Carnegie medals serve as a guide to help adults select quality reading material. They are the first single-book awards for adult books given by ALA and reflect the expert judgment and insight of library professionals and booksellers who work closely with adult readers.
“On behalf of the 2026 Andrew Carnegie Medals selection committee, it is my pleasure and honor to celebrate these extraordinary books that represent literary excellence in fiction and nonfiction,” said Lillian Dabney, current selection committee chair. “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 winners were selected from a field of stellar finalists.
In addition to “A Guardian and a Thief,” the 2026 fiction finalists included “The Unworthy,” by Agustina Bazterrica, translated by Sarah Moses, published by Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, LLC; and “We Do Not Part,” By Han Kang, translated by e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris, published by Hogarth, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.
And along with “Things in Nature Merely Grow,” the 2026 nonfiction finalists included “Baldwin, Styron, and Me,” by Mélikah Abdelmoumen, translated by Catherine Khordoc, published by Biblioasis; and “There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America,” by Brian Goldstone, published by Crown, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.
Medal winners will each receive $5,000, and all the finalists will be honored and the winners will be presented with their medals during a celebratory event at the American Writers Museum during ALA’s 2026 Annual Conference in Chicago in June. The awards were established with a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York and are cosponsored and administered by Booklist and RUSA.
More information on the finalists and the awards can be found at https://www.ala.org/carnegie-medals/2026-winners.
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