The 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medal shortlists are out

The 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence shortlist has been revealed.

From twenty-six novels and twenty nonfiction books, we now have the contenders for the main prize, to be announced February 4.

The prize honors the best in its category published in the prior year.

Fiction

• Homeland Elegies, by Ayad Akhtar.

• Deacon King Kong, by James McBride.

• A Burning, by Megha Majumdar.

Nonfiction 

• Fathoms: The World in the Whale, by Rebecca Giggs.

• Just Us: An American Conversation, by Claudia Rankine.

• Memorial Drive, by Natasha Trethewey.