The American Library Association (ALA) has selected A Guardian and a Thief (Knopf) by Megha Majumdar as the winner of the 2026 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and Things in Nature Merely Grow (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux) by Yiyun Li as the winner of the 2026 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. The Carnegie Medals for Excellence have been awarded annually since 2012 to recognize the best fiction and nonfiction books for adult readers published in the US. The winners were announced on January 27.
A Guardian and a Thief, Majumdar’s second novel following her acclaimed 2020 title Burning, is set in a near-future Kolkata besieged by worsening climate crises. Privileged Ma, along with her widowed father Dadu and 2-year-old daughter Mishti, are spending one last week in their native city before they escape to Michigan, when Ma’s purse, filled with priceless documents, is stolen. Majumdar brilliantly blurs right and wrong, ethics and legality. The novel was selected for Oprah’s Book Club and was a finalist for the 2025 National Book Award for fiction.
Li’s memoir also appeared on the National Book Award shortlist. In Things in Nature Merely Grow, the writer, best known for her novels and short stories, faces the shocking reality of her second son’s death by suicide. As Li writes in the beginning of the book, “There is no good way to state these facts…. My husband and I had two children and lost them both: Vincent in 2017, at 16, James in 2024, at 19. Both chose suicide.” Like Majumdar’s novel, Things in Nature Merely Grow was named one of 100 notable books of 2025 by the New York Times.
“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, librarian at Folio: The Seattle Athenaeum and chair of the selection committee. “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 other 2026 fiction finalists were The Unworthy (Scribner) by Agustina Bazterrica and translated by Sarah Moses, and We Do Not Part (Hogarth) by Han Kang and translated by e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris. Nonfiction finalists were Baldwin, Styron, and Me (Biblioasis) by Mélikah Abdelmoumen and translated by Catherine Khordoc, and There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America (Crown) by Brian Goldstone.
Winners will receive $5,000 each. All finalists and winners will be honored during a celebratory event at the American Writers Museum during ALA’s 2026 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Chicago in June.
The Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction are the first single-book awards for adult books given by ALA and are chosen by a committee of library professionals and booksellers who work closely with adult readers. The awards were established with a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York and are cosponsored and administered by Booklist and ALA’s Reference and User Services Association.
Read more about the 2026 finalists.
