The American Library Association has unveiled the longlists for their annual Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction. And they really are long—with 26 fiction books and 20 nonfiction books making the cut.
Among the fiction nominees is Douglas Stuart for Shuggie Bain, which is also a finalist for this year’s Kirkus Prize and was shortlisted for the National Book Award and the Booker Prize. Other Kirkus Prize finalists to make the Carnegie Medal longlists are James McBride for Deacon King Kong and Raven Leilani for Luster.
Other fiction nominees include Bryan Washington for Memorial, Maggie O’Farrell for Hamnet, Yaa Gyasi for Transcendent Kingdom, and Brit Bennett for The Vanishing Half.
Authors nominated in nonfiction include two Kirkus Prize finalists: Rebecca Giggs for Fathoms: The World in the Whale and Isabel Wilkerson for Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. Wilkerson’s book was also longlisted for the National Book Award.
Among the other nonfiction nominees are Karla Cornejo Villavicencio for The Undocumented Americans, Laila Lalami for Conditional Citizens: On Belonging in America, and Les Payne and Tamara Payne for The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X.
The longlists will be winnowed into shortlists with three books in each category, to be unveiled on Nov. 17. The winners of the awards will be announced on Feb. 4, 2021.
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
