2025 Kirkus Prizes

 

Lucas Schaefer, Scott Anderson, and Thao Lam are the winners of this year’s Kirkus Prizes, given annually to works of exceptional merit in the categories of fiction, nonfiction, and young readers’ literature.

The winners of the awards were announced Wednesday night during a ceremony at the TriBeca Rooftop in New York. The event was also livestreamed on Kirkus’ YouTube channel.

Schaefer won the fiction prize for The Slip, his debut novel about the characters associated with an Austin, Texas, boxing gym and a 16-year-old boy who goes missing. In a citation, the prize jurors wrote, “This debut novel fearlessly explores issues of race, class, sex, and gender through a wildly inventive group of characters and events…Franzen/Roth/Irving comparisons are earned and deserved.”

The judges for the fiction award were Thérèse Purcell Nielsen, a Kirkus reviewer and former public librarian; Oscar Villalon, a journalist and editor of the literary journal ZYZZYVA; and Kirkus fiction editor Laurie Muchnick.

 

Anderson took home the nonfiction award for King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation, a history of the 1979 revolution that forever changed the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East. “It’s a masterful and propulsive account that chronicles a devastatingly transformative series of events whose aftereffects reverberate to this day,” the judges said in a citation.

This year’s nonfiction jurors were Calvin Crosby, an owner of the King’s English Bookshop in Salt Lake City and executive director of the nonprofit Brain Food Books; Anita Felicelli, the books editor of Alta Journal and author of the books Chimerica, Love Songs for a Lost Continent, and How We Know Our Time Travelers; and Kirkus nonfiction editor John McMurtrie.

Lam won in the young readers’ literature category for Everybelly, her picture book about a young child who encounters neighbors of different shapes and sizes at the local swimming pool. In the prize citation, the judges said, “This joyful celebration of humanity springs to life through masterful, vibrant collages and text that’s both poignant and witty.”

 

Judging this year’s young readers’ literature award were Annette Y. Goldsmith, a librarian and co-founder of “Building a Global Youth Literature Collection 101”; Erika Long, a librarian, lecturer, and founder/consultant at Not Yo Mama’s Librarian, LLC; and Kirkus young readers’ editors Mahnaz Dar and Laura Simeon.

The winners of the prizes were chosen from books that received a starred review from Kirkus during the eligibility period of November 1, 2024 to October 31, 2025: 383 fiction titles, 290 nonfiction titles, and 497 young readers’ titles. The winning authors each received a trophy created by the London design team of Vezzini & Chen, along with a cash prize of $50,000. In a statement, Tom Beer, the editor-in-chief of Kirkus, said, “This year’s Kirkus Prize winners bring us vital messages for our time—messages about the joys of community, the power of self-transformation, and the mutability of historical events—all conveyed through exhilarating prose and pictures.” The Kirkus Prize was first awarded in 2014. Previous winners include Percival Everett for James, Brian Broome for Punch Me Up to the Gods, and Harmony Becker for Himawari House.

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/news-and-features/articles/winners-of-the-2025-kirkus-prize-revealed