McBride, Rankine among nominees for Carnegie literary medals

James McBride's latest novel and nonfiction by poets Claudia Rankine and Natasha Trethewey are among the finalists for the Andrew Carnegie Medals for fiction and nonfiction

The American Library Association announced Tuesday that McBride's “Deacon King Kong" was a fiction nominee, along with Ayad Akhtar's novel “Homeland Elegies” and an acclaimed debut novel, Megha Majumdar's “A Burning.” The nonfiction finalists are Trethewey's “Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir," Rankine's “Just Us,” which combines poetry, prose and photography, and Rebecca Giggs' “Fathoms: The World in the Whale." Winners in each category will be receive USD 5,000, and will be announced Feb. 4, 2021. The awards are supported, in part, by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.