Bestselling author and Emory University professor Tayari Jones is celebrating a major literary win! Her latest novel, Kin, has won the 2026 Kirkus Prize for Fiction, earning her a $50,000 cash award. Kin tells the story of Annie and Niecy, two motherless Black girls growing up in Louisiana whose lifelong friendship is shaped by love, loss, family, class and the communities around them. Set between rural Louisiana and Atlanta during the mid-20th century, the novel explores how two women can share deep roots while their lives take very different paths. It also shines a light on the experiences of Black women and the social injustices that shaped their world. Tayari shared that writing Kin helped her better understand her own mother and her mother’s generation, reflecting on how learning about the people who came before us can help us understand ourselves. Kin has become a New York Times bestseller, was selected for Oprah’s Book Club earlier this year, and has earned one of the lite...