Announcing the 2025 Kirkus Prize Winners: Celebrating Literary Excellence with $50,000 Awards

The prestigious Kirkus Prize has announced its 2025 winners, each receiving an impressive $50,000 award across three distinct categories.

In the fiction category, Lucas Schaefer claimed victory with his novel "The Slip," a compelling narrative exploring themes of identity while following a man's determined search for his long-missing nephew.

Scott Anderson secured the nonfiction prize for "King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation," offering readers a comprehensive historical account of the Shah of Iran's downfall.

For young readers' literature, Thao Lam's "Everybelly" emerged triumphant, presenting a charming poolside exploration of belly buttons and their unique stories—a celebration of an often overlooked part of human anatomy.

Established in 2014, the Kirkus Prize operates under the guidance of the respected trade publication Kirkus Reviews.

Tom Beer, Kirkus Reviews' Editor-in-Chief, remarked in Wednesday's announcement: "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."

Notable finalists for this year's awards included Angela Flournoy's novel "The Wilderness," Nicholas Boggs' "Baldwin: A Love Story," a biography of James Baldwin, and acclaimed author Arundhati Roy's memoir "Mother Mary Comes to Me."