The American Library Association Carnegie Award (formerly the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence) honors the best fiction and nonfiction of the year. The annual award recognizes exceptional books published in the United States, selected by a committee of library professionals and booksellers. The 2026 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction has been awarded to Megha Majumdar for her sprawling novel A Guardian and a Thief.
Megha Majumdar on Winning the Carnegie Medal
In a post shared to Instagram, Majumdar expressed her gratitude to the American Library Association for the honor. In addition to the Carnegie Medal, A Guardian and a Thief was a finalist for the 2026 National Book Award in fiction and appeared on numerous notable “best of” lists for 2025. The novel was also selected as an Oprah’s Book Club pick in October 2025.
About A Guardian and a Thief
The novel tells the story of a woman in a near-future, climate-stricken Kolkata as she prepares to leave India with her family and faces devastating setbacks that blur moral lines.
Oprah Winfrey writes, “Megha Majumdar is wise beyond her years. She’s able to bring in cultural conflicts and interweave the way people live and relate to each other in such a way that leaves us spellbound.”
USA Today calls the book “a literary gem,” while the New York Times names A Guardian and a Thief “a literary achievement.”
No stranger to accolades, Majumdar’s previous novel, A Burning, was a New York Times bestseller. A Guardian and a Thief is a national bestseller and one of the most celebrated books published in 2025.
Related: Oprah’s Book Club Names This Pulitzer Prize–Winning Author’s New Book the No. 1 Title She ‘Can’t Wait to Read in 2026’
About the Carnegie Award
The American Library Association (ALA) Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence winners are selected by a committee of library professionals and booksellers. Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li was honored with the award for best nonfiction of 2026.
Related: New York Times Books Names This ‘Stunning Romantasy’ One of the Year’s Best Hidden Gems
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This story was originally published by Parade on Jan 28, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
