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At a ceremony Thursday in Austin, Texas, three writers took home Kirkus Prizes: 

, Hanya Yanagihara and Pam Muñoz Ryan. The literary award, now in its second year, awards $50,000 to the winner in each category — nonfiction, fiction and young readers' literature.
Coates' 

 earned the honors in nonfiction. In a statement, the judges praised it as "a formidable literary achievement and a crucial, urgent, and nuanced contribution to a long-overdue national conversation."



They added: "Not only does it ask the right questions at the right time, its refusal to appease readers by offering simplistic answers underscores the writer's uncommon journalistic and literary courage."


The book, written as a letter to his son, also focuses a lens on a vaster subject: what it means to be black in America. In an 

, Coates told NPR's Michele Norris those topics aren't all that distant.


"I love America the way I love my family — I was born into it," Coates said. "But no definition of family that I've ever encountered or dealt with involves never having cross words with people, never having debate , never speaking directly."

 continued its sterling run this literary awards season, winning the Kirkus for fiction. Already a finalist for the 

 — which will be decided next month — Yanagihara's novel is "disturbing yet humane, capacious yet intimate, and never less than brilliant," according to the judges.
A record of the intertwined lives of four friends, the book is "long, page-turny, deeply moving, sometimes excessive, but always packed with the weight of a genuine 

. And, like the prize she's winning, the novel marks a sophomore effort; it was released just a year and a half after Yanagihara's debut.
Pam Muñoz Ryan's 

 a novel aimed at middle-grade readers, garnered the prize in young readers' literature. The book, a quest tale centered on a mysterious harmonica, is nothing less than "a masterwork by a virtuoso storyteller," the judges said.
To be considered eligible for the prize, writers had to receive a starred review from the literary journal 

Arts and Culture

The Thread® - Books and Literary News

Colin Dwyer

Author

The literary award, now in its second year, awards $50,000 to the winner in each category -- nonfiction, fiction and young readers' literature.

Ta-Nehisi Coates, Hanya Yanagihara and Pam Munoz Ryan win Kirkus Prizes

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