The American Library Association has revealed the finalists for the 2024 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction, awarded annually to books for adults published in the United States.
Jesmyn Ward made the fiction shortlist for Let Us Descend, also a finalist for this year’s Kirkus Prize. The novel follows a young enslaved woman in pre–Civil War America who is sold to a Louisiana plantation owner.
Also named fiction finalists were Amanda Peters for The Berry Pickers, about a Mi’kmaq family dealing with the disappearance of a child, and Christina Wong and Daniel Innes for Denison Avenue, a mixed-media book about a Chinese Canadian widow living in a gentrifying Toronto neighborhood.
Jake Bittle was named a nonfiction finalist for The Great Displacement, his look at how climate change is reshaping where people live in the United States. Darrin Bell made the shortlist for The Talk, a graphic memoir about growing up Black in a racist society, while Roxanna Asgarian was named a finalist for We Were Once a Family, about the failures of the American foster care system.
The Andrew Carnegie Medals were founded in 2012. Previous winners include Anthony Doerr for All the Light We Cannot See, Julie Otsuka for The Swimmers, and Sally Mann for Hold Still: A Memoir With Photographs.
The winners of this year’s awards will be announced on Jan. 20, 2024.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
