Anthony Veasna So, Louise Erdrich, and Hanif Abdurraqib are among the authors longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in fiction and nonfiction.
The American Library Association revealed the 45 books in contention for the awards on Monday.
So, who died last December at 28, was nominated in the fiction category for his debut book, the short story collection Afterparties. Erdrich, the winner of last year’s Pulitzer Prize in fiction, made the longlist for her latest novel, The Sentence.
Three finalists for this year’s National Book Awards were nominated for the fiction medal: Anthony Doerr for Cloud Cuckoo Land, Lauren Groff for Matrix, and Jason Mott for Hell of a Book.
Abdurraqib was longlisted for the nonfiction medal for A Little Devil in America, which is also a finalist for the National Book Award. Kristen Radtke’s Seek You, which is shortlisted for this year’s Kirkus Prize, also made the Carnegie shortlist.
Other nonfiction nominees include Jonathan Meiburg for A Most Remarkable Creature, the late Winfred Rembert for Chasing Me to My Grave, Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain for Four Hundred Souls, and Patrick Radden Keefe for Empire of Pain.
The Andrew Carnegie Medals were first awarded in 2012. Past winners have included Colson Whitehead for The Underground Railroad and Kiese Laymon for Heavy.
The shortlists for the awards will be announced on Nov. 8, and the winners will be named on Jan. 23, 2022. The full longlists are available on the prize’s website.
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
