The 2025 Book Prize features works that reflect themes of immigration, culture, technology and artistic expression. Winners will be celebrated this fall at the Central Library.

The Brooklyn Public Library announced the shortlist for the 2025 Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize, highlighting writers whose work reflects the borough’s spirit of cultural exchange, resilience and creativity.

Launched in 2015 by the Brooklyn Eagles, a group of young and engaged Brooklynites who are passionate about BPL and work to engage new patrons and build a vibrant community around the resources the library offers. The prize celebrates writing that resonates with Brooklyn readers and connects local culture to global conversations. Past winners have included Kaveh Akbar, Blair L.M. Kelley, Catherine Lacey, Ocean Vuong, Carmen Maria Machado and Miriam Toews.

“The 2025 Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize celebrates writers, poets and journalists who capture the culture and ethos of our borough,” Linda E. Johnson, president and chief executive officer of the Brooklyn Public Library said in a statement. “Despite being set across the globe, the titles on this year’s shortlist center on themes that define Brooklyn: cross-cultural dialogue, immigration, technological advancement and artistic expression.”

This year’s selections, chosen by librarians and staff with a pulse on Brooklyn’s reading community, explore themes of immigration, cross-cultural dialogue, technology and artistic expression, even when set far beyond the borough.

Fiction finalists include:

  • The Volcano Daughters by Gina María Balibrera

     

  • Hum by Helen Phillips

     

  • In Universes by Emet North

     

Nonfiction finalists include:

  • Forest of Noise: Poems by Mosab Abu Toha

     

  • Life and Death of the American Worker: The Immigrants Taking on America’s Largest Meatpacking Company by Alice Driver

     

  • Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde by Alexis Pauline Gumbs

The six authors will take part in a conversation with BPL Librarian and Prize Chair Jess Harwick on Sept. 19 at the Central Library. The event is free and open to the public.