The American Library Association has announced that The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka (Knopf) has won the American Library Association’s 2023 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, while An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong (Random House) took home the medal for nonfiction. The selections were announced on Sunday, January 29, at the ALA’s LibLearnX conference in New Orleans.

“Julie Otsuka proves herself a master of narrative voice, thrillingly balancing the incredible vitality of community life with the myriad challenges faced by individuals and families within that community,” said Stephen Sposato, chair of the selection committee for the 2023 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence. “And, standing out even during a recent golden age of nature writing, Ed Yong dazzles with a deeply considered exploration of the many modes of sensory perception that life has evolved to navigate the world, written with exhilarating freshness.”

The Carnegie Awards, established in 2012 as the ALA’s first single-book awards for adult books, were designed to reflect the “judgment and insight of library professionals and booksellers who work closely with adult readers.” The award, which comes with a $5,000 cash prize for winners, has become one of the most coveted awards among authors. This year's winners will be presented with their medals during a celebratory event at the American Writers Museum in Chicago during ALA's 2023 Annual Conference in June.

The Medals were established, and are supported in part, by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York, and are co-sponsored by ALA’s Booklist and the Reference and User Services Association.

The 2023 fiction finalists also include Greenland by David Santos Donaldson (Amistad) and Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty (Tin House). Nonfiction finalists include Constructing a Nervous System by Margo Jefferson (Pantheon) and Vagina Obscura: An Anatomical Voyage by Rachel E. Gross (W.W. Norton).

The ALA's LibLearnX conference in New Orleans closes today.