Here are the winners of the 2025 Kirkus Prize.

Tonight, at a ceremony in New York City, Kirkus Reviews announced the three winners of the 2025 Kirkus Prize, in the categories of Fiction, Nonfiction, and Young Readers’ Literature. These winners were selected from a list of finalists, announced in August, themselves chosen from the pool of writers whose work was awarded a coveted Kirkus star in the eligibility year.

“This year’s Kirkus Prize winners bring us vital messages for our time—messages about the joys of community, the power of self-transformation, and the mutability of historical events—all conveyed through exhilarating prose and pictures,” said Kirkus Reviews Editor-in-chief Tom Beer in a statement. The winner in each category will receive $50,000.

Congratulations to the winners:

FICTION:

Lucas Schaefer, The Slip
Simon & Schuster

*

NONFICTION:

Scott Anderson, King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation
Doubleday

*

YOUNG READERS’ LITERATURE:

Thao Lam, Everybelly
Groundwood