Celebrating One of the Richest Literary Prizes in the World

Last night in Austin, Texas, Kirkus Reviews held a party to celebrate the winners of the 2017 Kirkus Prizes, chosen as the best of the best among the 1,272 books that received a star from Kirkus in the past year. Each winner will be awarded $50,000, which is a pretty hefty purse for a literary prize. Check out the winners and some photos from the bash below.

The winners of the 2017 Kirkus Prizes are:

Fiction: Lesley Nneka Arimah, What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky: Stories (Riverhead)

Judges’ Statement: Lesley Nneka Arimah sinuously moves through a variety of storytelling traditions with the grace of a dancer in the prime of her career. What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky is a kaleidoscopic and emotionally powerful collection that displays remarkable range, shifting from a dystopian exploration of a futuristic society to the interplay between mothers and daughters and to the legacy of the violent political struggles of Nigeria’s past. Her characters are as vivid and pronounced as her language, and the book is a testament to her command and unpredictability. Each story lands in an entirely new place, and wherever this writer goes next, she’s certain to provoke and surprise. Arimah’s stylistic breadth and intelligence are evident on every page of this
masterful debut.

Fiction finalists:

Mohsin Hamid, Exit West (Riverhead)
Hari Kunzru, White Tears (Knopf)
Alice McDermott, The Ninth Hour (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body and Other Parties: Stories (Graywolf)
Jesmyn Ward, Sing, Unburied, Sing (Scribner)

*

Nonfiction: Jack E. Davis, The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea (Liveright/Norton)

Judges’ Statement: The Gulf is a groundbreaking history of the sea illuminating the complex forces ravaging our environment. The Gulf of Mexico emerges as a power in itself in Jack E. Davis’ enthralling narrative, animated by deft, vivid portraits of men and women who saw in the Gulf a source of sustenance, inspiration, and, not least, wealth. Fishermen, artists, writers, indigenous and migrant communities, adventurers, and greedy businessmen leap from the pages as Davis chronicles the fierce, wild, and fragile ecology of the American sea. A timeless cautionary tale, as rich and capacious as the region itself.

Nonfiction finalists:

Edward Dolnick, The Seeds of Life: From Aristotle to da Vinci, from Sharks’ Teeth to Frogs’ Pants, the
Long and Strange Quest to Discover Where Babies Come from (Basic)
Patricia Lockwood, Priestdaddy: A Memoir (Riverhead)
Valeria Luiselli, Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions (Coffee House)
Michael Twitty, The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African-American Culinary History in the Old
South (Amistad/HarperCollins)
Laura Dassow Walls, Henry David Thoreau: A Life (Univ. of Chicago)

*

Young Readers’ Literature: Cherie Dimaline, The Marrow Thieves (DCB)

Judges’ Statement: In Cherie Dimaline’s poetic and lyrical novel The Marrow Thieves, she presents the links between our past and our future in a world where dreams are harvested by those who continue to oppress the Indigenous peoples of North America. In the wake of environmental devastation, Frenchie joins a band of survivors led by Miig, the elder of a community on the run from those who wish to warehouse them and extract their bone marrow. With lush, illuminated language, Dimaline gives the readers strong, well-developed characters whose stories about coming to the group are revelatory, devastating, and, yet, ultimately, hopeful. She vividly demonstrates the intrinsic value and critical importance of knowing how your culture makes you who you are. With taut pacing and strong reader appeal, this story confronts the illusion of a perfect, cleansed world, inviting parallels to history and current events.

Young Readers’ Finalists:

Jairo Buitrago, Walk With Me, illustrated by Rafael Yockteng and translated by Elisa Amado (Groundwood)
Lilli L’Arronge, Me Tall, You Small, translated by Madeleine Stratford (Owlkids)
Cao Wenxuan, Bronze and Sunflower, translated by Helen Wang, and illustrated by Meilo So (Candlewick)
Karen English, It All Comes Down to This (Clarion)
Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give (Balzer + Bray)

Kirkus winners: Pam Muñoz Ryan, accepting on behalf of Cherie Dimaline, Jack Davis, and Rebecca Saletan accepting on behalf of Lesley Nneka Arimah. Photo credit: Ashley Haguewood.

Hannah Oliver Depp, fiction judge and NAIBA board member and bookseller at Word Bookstore, Jersey City; Novelist and fiction judge Meg Wolitzer; Kendra Fortmeyer, guest. Photo credit: Ashley Haguewood.

All judges (from left): Jos N. Holman, former president of Black Caucus of The ALA; Javier Ramirez, manager-Book Table, Chicago; Hannah Oliver Depp, bookseller-Word, Jersey City; Linda Simon, Kirkus critic and author; Mark Athitakis, author and Kirkus critic; Laura Simeon, Kirkus critic and librarian; Pam Munoz Ryan, author and former Kirkus prize winner; Meg Wolitzer, author; Ibram X. Kendi, National Book Award winning author. Photo credit: Ashley Haguewood.

Kirkus finalists: Alice McDermott, Hari Kunzru, Madeleine Stratford, Jack E. Davis, Karen English, Laua Dassow Walls, Patricia Lockwood. Photo credit: Ashley Haguewood.

Winner Jack E. Davis. Photo credit: Ashley Haguewood.

Finalist Alice McDermott. Photo credit: Ashley Haguewood.

Finalist Alice McDermott with her agent, Sarah Burnes of The Gernert Company. Photo credit: Ashley Haguewood.

Kirkus executive board (from left): Carissa Bluestone, VP Kirkus Editorial; Clay Smith, Editor in Chief; Meg Laborde Kuehn, CEO; Karen Schechner, VP Kirkus Indie; Sarah Kalina, VP Marketing. Photo credit: Ashley Haguewood.

Clay Smith, Kirkus editor in chief; Linda Nowick O’Keefe, guest; Amanda Ward, novelist/guest; Tip Meckel, guest. Photo credit: Ashley Haguewood.

Pam Muñoz Ryan, Young Readers’ judge and previous winner of the Kirkus Prize for her Newbery Honor book, Echo;
Laura Simeon, Kirkus critic and librarian. Photo credit: Ashley Haguewood.