Quebec writer Mélikah Abdelmoumen is among the three writers shortlisted for the 2026 American Library Association’s (ALA) Andrew Carnegie Medal for Nonfiction.

Baldwin, Styron, and Me (published by Windsor-based Biblioasis) is Abdelmoumen’s first book to be translated into English from the original French, by Carlton professor Catherine Khordoc.

The book won the Prix Pierre-Vadeboncoeur in 2022 and was shortlisted for the 2025 Governor General’s Literary Award for translation (from French to English) and the 2025 Literary Translators’ Association of Canada John Glassco Translation Prize.

The book, a long-form essay first published by Montreal’s Mémoire d’encrier, deals with the unlikely friendship of James Baldwin and William Styron and how it reflects on contemporary debates around race, identity, and censorship.

Abdelmoumen has published articles, short stories, essays and novels; Baldwin, Styron, and Me is her tenth book. She has worked as an editor with Montreal publisher Groupe Ville-Marie Littérature and was editor-in-chief of literary magazine Lettres québécoises.

The other titles shortlisted for the nonfiction medal are There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America by Brian Goldstone and Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li.

Three works of fiction are shortlisted for the fiction medal.

The fiction and nonfiction winners, who will each receive $5000 (U.S.), will be announced on Jan. 27, 2026.