Lambda Literary has announced the winners of their 37th annual Lambda Literary Awards spanning 26 categories. The Winners, selected by a panel of 80 literary professionals, were announced via an online ceremony hosted by executive director Jozie Clapp from Charlie’s Queer Books in Seattle. Over 1,300 books from more than 300 publishers were submitted for review, and eight special prizes were awarded in the week leading up to the ceremony. Also this year, Lambda Literary introduced the Karla Jay Prize for Emerging Writers in Gender and Sexuality Studies.
Winning in the category of Lesbian Fiction is The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden, which also won the Booker Prize in 2024. Van der Wouden’s debut novel follows Isabel, a young Dutch girl living as a recluse and caring for her family home in Overjissel, Netherlands. Buy the book.
In the Gay Fiction category, Henry Henry by Allen Bratton was the winner. A reimagined version of Shakespeare’s Henry IV, it centers on Hal, a 22-year-old gay and Catholic college student at Oxford struggling against grief, shame, and a complex family history. The novel is also Bratton’s debut. Buy the book.
The LGBTQ+ Nonfiction pick was The Other Olympians by Michael Waters, a story of early trans athletes about “Fascism, Queerness, and the Making of Modern Sports.” Buy the book.
The winner of the prize for Gay Memoir/Biography went to Brad Gooch for Radiant: The Life and Line of Keith Haring. Buy the book.
The Karla Jay Prize for Emerging Writers in Gender and Sexuality Studies was awarded to Nat Rivkin.
