Press release: 'The Swimmers,' 'An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us' receive 2023 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction

FICTION FINALISTS

David Santos Donaldson

(Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers)

Donaldson delivers a psychologically acute portrayal of a queer Black man crumbling under the weight of personal, historical, and racial trauma. Despite heavy subject material, Kip’s irreverent narration provides moments of memorable levity.

Morgan Talty

(Tin House)

At the heart of this collection of linked stories is David, a member of the Penobscot Nation in Maine, in whose small world Native traditions mix matter-of-factly with binge-watches of The Sopranos. With a clear-eyed and compassionate gaze, Talty reveals the complexity of his characters and the ways they are shaped by their community and their pasts.

Julie Otsuka

(Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC)

In an underground pool, a collective “we” reports the comings and goings of the titular swimmers, regulars who have established their schedules, lanes, and paces with comforting familiarity, until a crack in the pool floor causes upheaval. The water was an essential haven for Alice, whose story aboveground is a polyphonic reveal through her fading memories. Otsuka’s devastating masterpiece is an extraordinary examination of the fragility of human relationships..

NONFICTION FINALISTS

Margo Jefferson

(Pantheon Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC)

Blending the multicolored threads of Black cultural life with memories of her past in this impressionistic memoir, Jefferson reflects on the Black icons who shaped her worldview, from jazz great Bud Powell to legendary entertainer and Resistance hero Josephine Baker. Jefferson is a critic’s critic, turning her keenly honed analysis on herself, her family, and her class, while relentlessly interrogating the broader underlying context of white racism.

Ed Yong

(Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC)

The animals and their unique perceptual abilities Yong examines here range from the platypus with a bill that detects electric fields, the echolocation prowess of bats and dolphins, the ultrafast vision of killer flies, and the outstanding olfaction of elephants. Yong’s scientific curiosity is contagious, and his writing is empathetic, impeccably researched, imaginative, and entertaining.

Rachel E. Gross

(W.W. Norton & Company)

Realizing that the terminology for what medicine refers to as “the female reproductive system” was insufficient, Gross set out to correct this. The result expertly balances authoritative sources, history, and scientific data with frank discussions by medical professionals, scientists, and people of all genders.

FICTION

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Armfield, Julia.

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(Flatiron)

Bhanoo, Sindya.

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(Catapult)

Chan, Jessamine.

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(Simon & Schuster)

Diaz, Hernan.

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(Riverhead Books)

Donaldson, David Santos.

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(Amistad)

Egan, Jennifer.

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(Scribner)

Escoffery, Jonathan.

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(MCD BOOKS)

Hokeah, Oscar.

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(Algonquin)

Holleran, Andrew.

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(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Kingsolver, Barbara.

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(Harper)

Kolluri, Talia Lakshmi.

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(Tin House)

Li, Yiyun.

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(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Mandel, Emily St. John.

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(Knopf)

McCarthy, Cormac.

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(Knopf)

Nagamatsu, Sequoia.

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(William Morrow)

O'Farrell, Maggie.

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(Knopf)

Otsuka, Julie.

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(Knopf)

Stuart, Douglas.

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(Grove)

Talty, Morgan.

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(Tin House)

Wang, Weike.

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(Random House)

Warrell, Laura.

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(Pantheon)

Zhang, Jenny Tinghui.

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(Flatiron)