The Ninth of
November,2026.
A Monday · Seven o'clock in the evening
The Great Hall of the Cooper Union · 7 East 7th Street · New York, New York. In the room where Lincoln spoke in 1860, we will read the citations for a year of reading.
A ceremony
in seven parts.
The ceremony runs, by rule, no longer than two hours. Six citations are read in full; one keynote is delivered; five laureates speak, if they wish, for a maximum of four minutes each. There is neither an interval nor an emcee.
Where Lincoln spoke,
we have read since 1981.
The Great Hall of the Cooper Union has been the awards' seat since the first ceremony, in November 1981. It was there that Abraham Lincoln, in February of 1860, delivered the address that made him a plausible candidate for the presidency, and it was there that the foundation resolved, in 1980, to hold every ceremony that it possibly could.
The Hall seats nine hundred and eighty. Since 1981, the foundation has released, each year, exactly nine hundred and fifty tickets to the public: one hundred at no charge, three hundred at the reader's rate, four hundred at the standard rate, and one hundred and fifty as patron seats that underwrite the rest.
It is the largest room in the country where you can hear a citation read aloud without a microphone.
Nine hundred fifty
seats.
Tickets are released on the first Monday of September. Reader tickets are limited to two per household. The one hundred no-charge seats are drawn by lottery on the first Monday of October, from an open application on this page.
- Great Hall admission
- Printed program
- Access to the lobby reception
- Great Hall admission
- Printed program & a signed copy of every laureate's book
- Champagne reception at 6:15 PM
- Lobby reception
- Front-half seating in the Great Hall
- Signed first edition of every 2026 laureate
- Dinner at the Century Association, following
- Named on the ceremony program
One hundred seats are set aside for readers who cannot attend at any price. Apply through the lottery on the first Monday of October.
Apply for a no-charge seatForty-five ceremonies,
archived in full.
Every ceremony since 1981 has been recorded. Since 2004, the recordings are streamed at no charge. Since 2018, they are transcribed, keyword-searchable, and cross-linked to the citations, the laureates, and the archive.
Ceremony
Fiction laureate: Mira Chen · A Country of Ghosts
Fiction laureate: Tomás Halberstadt · The Deep Field
Louise Erdrich presents to Marilynne Robinson.
Lucía Marroquín, in Santiago, over Zoom.
Held two months late, one time only.