Locus Awards 2026: Okorafor, Harrow and Jones win the novel categories
Nnedi Okorafor, Alix E. Harrow and Stephen Graham Jones won the 2026 Locus Awards for science fiction, fantasy and horror novels.
The Locus Science Fiction Foundation announced the 2026 Locus Award winners on 30 May at the Bay Area Book Festival in California. The awards are decided by a readers' poll.
Best science fiction novel went to Nnedi Okorafor's Death of the Author. Alix E. Harrow won best fantasy novel for The Everlasting, and Stephen Graham Jones best horror novel for The Buffalo Hunter Hunter. Yoon Ha Lee won the young adult category for Starstrike, a second consecutive win in that category after Moonstorm in 2025. Natalia Theodoridou's Sour Cherry won best first novel.
The translated novel award went to On the Calculation of Volume: Book III by the Danish writer Solvej Balle, translated by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell.
The Locus results proved a fair indicator of the summer's other awards: Jones went on to win the Nebula for best novel in June, and Harrow the Hugo in August. The translated category is also worth watching. Balle's multi-volume work is usually discussed as literary fiction, and its presence here shows that a genre readership will take up translated work that does not come labelled as science fiction or fantasy.
Sources: SFFWorld: 2026 Locus Awards winners announced; Kirkus Reviews: winners of 2026 Locus Awards are revealed.