Someday I’d like to say I have read all the Pulitzer Prize winners for fiction. I took a look at the all-time list, and discovered I have a long way to go!
2019: The Overstory by Richard Powers
2018: Less by Andrew Sean Greer (read and reviewed)
2017: The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
2016: The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
2015: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (read and reviewed)
2014: The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
2013: The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson
2012: No award
2011: A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
2010: Tinkers by Paul Harding
2009: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (read and reviewed)
2008: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
2007: The Road by Cormac McCarthy (read and reviewed)
2006: March by Geraldine Brooks
2005: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
2004: The Known World by Edward P. Jones
2003: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (read but not reviewed)
2002: Empire Falls by Richard Russo (read and reviewed)
2001: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
2000: Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
1999: The Hours by Michael Cunningham (read but not reviewed)
1998: American Pastoral by Philip Roth
1997: Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser
1996: Independence Day by Richard Ford
1995: The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
1994: The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx (read but not reviewed)
1993: A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler
1992: A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
1991: Rabbit At Rest by John Updike
1990: The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos
1989: Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler
1988: Beloved by Toni Morrison (read but not reviewed)
1987: A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor
1986: Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
1985: Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie
1984: Ironweed by William Kennedy
1983: The Color Purple by Alice Walker (read but not reviewed)
1982: Rabbit Is Rich by John Updike
1981: A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
1980: The Executioner’s Song by Norman Mailer
1979: The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever
1978: Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson
1977: No award
1976: Humboldt’s Gift by Saul Bellow
1975: The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
1974: No award
1973: The Optimist’s Daughter by Eudora Welty (read but not reviewed)
1972: Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
1971: No award
1970: Collected Stories by Jean Stafford
1969: House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday
1968: The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron
1967: The Fixer by Bernard Malamud
1966: Collected Stories by Katherine Anne Porter
1965: The Keepers Of The House by Shirley Ann Grau
1964: No award
1963: The Reivers by William Faulkner
1962: The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O’Connor
1961: To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee (read and reviewed)
1960: Advise and Consent by Allen Drury
1959: The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters by Robert Lewis Taylor
1958: A Death In The Family by James Agee
1957: No award
1956: Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor
1955: A Fable by William Faulkner
1954: No award
1953: The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (read and reviewed)
1952: The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
1951: The Town by Conrad Richter
1950: The Way West by A. B. Guthrie
1949: Guard of Honor by James Gould Cozzens
1948: Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener
Note – prior to 1948, the awards were split between Novel and Drama. The following winners are from the Novel category
1947: All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren
1946: No award
1945: A Bell for Adano by John Hersey
1944: Journey in the Dark by Martin Flavin
1943: Dragon’s Teeth by Upton Sinclair
1942: In This Our Life by Ellen Glasgow
1941: No award
1940: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (read and reviewed)
1939: The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (read but not reviewed)
1938: The Late George Apley by John Phillips Marquand
1937: Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (read and reviewed)
1936: Honey in the Horn by Harold L. Davis
1935: Now in November by Josephine Winslow Johnson
1934: Lamb in His Bosom by Caroline Miller
1933: The Store by T. S. Stribling
1932: The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck (read but not reviewed)
1931: Years of Grace by Margaret Ayer Barnes
1930: Laughing Boy by Oliver Lafarge
1929: Scarlet Sister Mary by Julia Peterkin
1928: The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
1927: Early Autumn by Louis Bromfield
1926: Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis
1925: So Big by Edna Ferber
1924: The Able McLaughlins by Margaret Wilson
1923: One of Ours by Willa Cather
1922: Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington
1921: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (read and reviewed)
1920: No award
1919: The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington
1918: His Family by Ernest Poole
To reward you for making it to the bottom of this list, here are a few facts about the Pulitzer Prizes!
- The Pulitzer prizes were established in 1917 to recognize outstanding journalism, photography, literature, history, poetry, music and drama.
- There are twenty-one award categories. Only United States citizens are eligible to apply for the prize in Letters, Drama and Music, except for the History category of Letters, in which the book must be about the United States, but the author may be of any nationality.
- John F. Kennedy has been the only President to receive the Pulitzer Prize. He was awarded the prize in 1957 for his biography, Profiles in Courage.
- And for all those self-published and indie authors: Self-published books are eligible for the prize, but they must be available in print!
Click here to visit an earlier post with interesting facts about the man behind it all, famous newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer.
Visit pulitzer.org to learn more about the Pulitzer Prizes.
Thanks for visiting – come back soon!
Oh my gosh I have only read a handful of these. I can’t read that fast to get them read so perhaps I’ll look for some on Audible. It sure makes a car ride go faster.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s humbling to see how many I haven’t read!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Very interesting post! I’ve read 17 to date. I have “shelves” for various awards on Goodreads to track them.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Good idea! Do you think you’ll get to them all? And of course there are also dramas and nonfiction…eeek!
LikeLike
No, some just don’t interest me. I just love tracking stuff like that. Are you on Goodreads?
LikeLike
I’ve read only nine of them. Looks like I have some work to do!
LikeLiked by 2 people
See you in the library!
LikeLiked by 2 people
👍
LikeLike
Does it count that I’ve read Gone With the Wind five times? 🙂 You’ve just added to my list!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Haha! That’s good – and I think the answer is yes! I was thinking about the runners up too – maybe that’s another post. 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
Phew!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sadly, only five.
LikeLiked by 1 person
So much to read – hard to get to it all!
LikeLike
I counted only sixteen…I will take a closer look later. Thanks!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I copied this list a few months ago and keep reviewing it to see how many of the books (or even the authors) I have read. It hasn’t been many but I am slowly whittling away at the list.
LikeLike
Yeesh, I’ve only read four.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve read 20, but looking at this list, I see that I’m not very up to date – only 2 from the 21st century!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Snap! Same as you but some different ones! I wonder why there are some Years with no award? A great list post!! 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wow! thanks for sharing the list, Barbara. If was to set out with the same goal, I’d have even further to go than you. I hate to admit that I have read only four.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Seven, I think but a few more that are on my wishlist or TBR. I love it that a book like Gone With the Wind (great book though it is) should have won such a prestigious prize. My sense is that literary prizes are a little bit more ‘snobby’ these days…
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve only read ten of these. So many books and so little time!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh I know Jennifer – I have a lot to go too! 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
And even more for you now that you’ve joined Net Galley!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Could be trouble!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ah, only six, but I do have several others on my bookshelves…do they count?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, yes they do! 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh good, I’m not as low-brow as I thought! 😋
LikeLiked by 1 person
Reblogged this on and commented:
Barbara Vitelli, a.k.a. Book Club Mom, compiled this list of Pulitzer Prize winners for Fiction two years ago and updated it this year. By 2017, I had read only 10 of them, but since then I’ve added 5 and hope to read more. How many of these novels have you read?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you so much, Jennifer, for reblogging my post! I think it’s fun to try to read all the award-winners. Have you read The Shipping News? Isn’t that set in Newfoundland? Hope you are doing well! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
You’re more than welcome, Barbara. Yes, I saw The Shipping News, mainly because it was filmed here. Then I watched the movie. Both were great!
I plan to read more from this list. Happy Sunday to you. 😊
LikeLiked by 1 person
I meant to say I read it then watched the movie. 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
I haven’t seen the movie! We read The Shipping News for our book club, years ago and I really liked it 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I am surprised to find that I remember reading only five. I enjoyed very much those I did read so I guess winning the prize is an indication of high quality. The Shipping News, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Old Man and the Sea, Tales of the South Pacific, and The Grapes of Wrath are the titles I remember reading. I may have read others such as The Caine Mutiny but I don’t remember so maybe just five titles.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I keep telling myself that I have to read The Caine Mutiny. I don’t think I can call myself a true Herman Wouk fan until I do (though I’ve read several of his other books). Sometimes I feel like I should not read anything new, just go back and catch up on the classics I’ve missed over the years. Thanks for reading and commenting.
LikeLike