Kirkus announced the jurors for the 2023 Kirkus Prize, given annually to outstanding works of fiction, nonfiction, and young readers’ literature. The prize comes with a cash award of $50,000, making it one of the richest literary prizes in the world.
The fiction jurors for this year’s prize are Rosa Hernandez, marketing manager and bookseller at Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park, Washington, and Michael Schaub, a correspondent and critic for Kirkus and regular contributor to NPR Books.
Serving on the nonfiction jury are Mark Athitakis, an Arizona-based journalist and critic, and Anjali Enjeti, author of the books Southbound: Essays on Identity, Inheritance, and Social Change and The Parted Earth.
The young people’s literature jurors are Kimberly Brubaker Bradley, a Kirkus prize finalist for her children’s novel Fighting Words, and Ayn Reyes Frazee, a high school librarian in Portland, Oregon.
This is the 10th year the Kirkus Prize will be awarded. Finalists for the prize will be announced in August, and the winners will be revealed at a ceremony on Oct. 11. The ceremony is usually held in Austin, Texas; this year, it will take place at Tribeca Rooftop in New York.
All books which receive a Kirkus star during the 12-month eligibility period are considered for the prize. Past winners include Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life), Ta-Nehisi Coates (Between the World and Me), Jason Reynolds (As Brave As You), Ling Ma (Severance), Jack E. Davis (The Gulf), Jerry Craft (New Kid), Colson Whitehead (The Nickel Boys), and Hernan Diaz (Trust).
Tom Beer is the editor-in-chief.