The 2023 winners of the Kirkus Prize, a coveted prize given annually to books of exceptional merit in the categories of fiction, nonfiction, and young readers’ literature, are James McBride, Héctor Tobar, and Ariel Aberg-Riger.
The 10th annual Kirkus Prize winners were announced October 11 in a ceremony held at the Tribeca Rooftop in New York and streamed live on Kirkus’ YouTube channel.
McBride won in the fiction category for his novel The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, which the jurors described as “a boisterous hymn to community, mercy, and karmic justice,” set in a Black and Jewish neighborhood called Chicken Hill in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, in the 1930s.
The fiction jurors—bookseller Rosa Hernandez, Kirkus contributing writer Michael Schaub, and Kirkus fiction editor Laurie Muchnick—praised the author’s creation of a “vibrant fictional world” and called the novel “warm,” “humane” and "clear-eyed about prejudice yet full of hope for the power of community.”
Tobar was named winner in the nonfiction category for his book examining the Latinx experience in the United States, Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of “Latino.”
The 2023 nonfiction jurors—journalist/critic/authors Mark Athitakis (The New Midwest) and Anjali Enjeti (Southbound and The Parted Earth), and Kirkus nonfiction editor Eric Liebetrau—hailed Tobar’s blend of autobiography and cultural commentary as a “potent manifesto” that “goes beyond reductive newspaper headlines and inflammatory political discourse” to bring “into sharp focus a massive yet marginalized community.”
Aberg-Riger was awarded the young readers’ literature prize for America Redux: Visual Stories From Our Dynamic History, an illustrated book of U.S. history that the jurors described as “provocative, courageous, and inclusive” and respectful of young adults’ “passion and intellect.”
The jurors in the young readers’ literature category—Newbery-honored author Kimberly Brubaker Bradley, librarian and Kirkus critic Ayn Reyes Frazee, and Kirkus young readers’ editors Mahnaz Dar and Laura Simeon—called the book “a vitally important work that dares to tell the truth.”
The Kirkus Prize winners were selected from 10,794 titles that were published between Nov. 1, 2022, and Oct. 31, 2023 (for fiction and nonfiction) and Oct. 1, 2022, and Sept. 30, 2023 (for young readers’ literature) and reviewed by Kirkus.
“History and community emerged as central themes in the most outstanding works of literature published this year,” Kirkus Reviews Publisher Meg Kuehn said in a statement. “We see these ideas come to life in wildly different ways in all three of this year’s winners, each one compelling from beginning to end, begging to be celebrated, discussed, and shared.”
Each winner receives a trophy created by the London design team of Vezzini & Chen and a $50,000 cash prize, making the Kirkus Prize, which was first awarded in 2014, one of the world’s richest literary awards.
“It’s a special year for Kirkus—the 90th anniversary of the magazine, as well as the 10th anniversary of the Kirkus Prize—and we couldn’t be more pleased with the winners of this year’s awards,” said Kirkus Reviews Editor-in-Chief Tom Beer.
Amy Reiter is a freelance writer.
