The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction – how many have you read?

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

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Note – prior to 1948, the awards were split between Novel and Drama. The following winners are from the Novel category

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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

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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!

Image: Wikipedia

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!

Who will win the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction?

Are you wondering who will win the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction?  You only have to wait a couple more days.  All Pulitzer Prize winners will be announced on Monday, April 18, beginning at 3:00 pm ET.  This year is special because it is the 100^th awarding of the prizes.

Do you remember last year’s fiction award winner?  It was one of my favorites, All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.  You can read my gushing review of that terrific book here.

The prize isn’t just for fiction, however.  There are twenty-one categories which recognize excellence in journalism and the arts.  Here’s the full list:

JOURNALISM

• Public Service
• Breaking News Reporting
• Investigative Reporting
• Explanatory Reporting
• Local Reporting
• National Reporting
• International Reporting
• Feature Writing
• Commentary
• Criticism
• Editorial Writing
• Editorial Cartooning
• Breaking News Photography
• Feature Photography

LETTERS, DRAMA AND MUSIC

• Fiction
• Drama
• History
• Biography or Autobiography
• Poetry
• General Nonfiction
• Music

SPECIAL CITATIONS (not every year)

It’s too late to enter for 2016, but if you think you’re worthy of this prestigious award, you can check out the procedures here.   Nominated finalists are not publicized, so it’s anybody’s guess who will win!

The Pulitzer Prize website, pulitzer.org, is an excellent source of information about the award and its history.  And for some additional fun facts, click here to read my post about the 2015 winners.

Thanks for visiting – come back soon!

2015 Pulitzer Prize winners announced

credit: Pulitzer.org

In case you missed it, winners of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize were announced on Monday, April 20. Here are some interesting facts about the famous newspaper publisher, Joseph Pulitzer and the award:

photo from Wikipedia

• Joseph Pulitzer was born in Hungary in 1847. He came to the United States as a recruit for the Union Army during the Civil War and later became a U.S. citizen. He died in 1911, at age sixty-four.
• Before he became a newspaper magnate, Pulitzer was aimless and unemployed. He once sold his only possession, a white hankie, for 75¢.
• He once had a job as a mule hostler, but quit that job in frustration, later noting, “The man who has not cared for sixteen mules does not know what work and troubles are.”
• Pulitzer married Katherine Davis in 1878. They had seven children. Five lived to adulthood.
• Pulitzer was elected to the Republican state legislature in Missouri in 1870. But he switched parties in 1880 and served a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. He was an outspoken supporter of the Democratic platform.
• The term “yellow journalism” became a common strategy during the circulation war between Pulitzer’s New York World and Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal. Both publishers used sensationalism, exaggeration, and scandal to sell their newspapers.
• Pulitzer was a driven newspaper publisher, but he had many health issues. He was nearly blind, a condition that worsened over time from long hours on the job. He also suffered from depression and was painfully sensitive to noise. He eventually relinquished control of the day-to-day operations of the World, but still controlled the editorial content and direction of the paper.
• The Columbia School of Journalism was founded in 1912, using money from Pulitzer’s estate.
• The Pulitzer prizes were established in 1917 to recognize outstanding journalism, photography, literature, history, poetry, music and drama. There are twenty-one award categories.
• Twenty of the winners receive $10,000 cash. The winner in the Public Service category of Journalism receives a gold medal. This award goes to a news organization, not an individual.
• 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.
• In the Journalism category, entrants do not have to be U.S. citizens, but the work must have appeared in a U.S. newspaper that is published at least once a week, on a newspaper’s website or an online news organization website.
• 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.
• Self-published books are eligible for the prize, but they must be available in print.

Here are the 2015 winners, as posted in the Pulitzer Prize website:

Journalism

PUBLIC SERVICE – The Post and Courier, Charleston, SC

BREAKING NEWS REPORTING – The Seattle Times Staff

INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING – Two Prizes: – Eric Lipton of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal Staff

EXPLANATORY REPORTING – Zachary R. Mider of Bloomberg News

LOCAL REPORTING – Rob Kuznia, Rebecca Kimitch and Frank Suraci of the Daily Breeze, Torrance, CA

NATIONAL REPORTING – Carol D. Leonnig of The Washington Post

INTERNATIONAL REPORTING – The New York Times Staff

FEATURE WRITING – Diana Marcum of the Los Angeles Times

COMMENTARY – Lisa Falkenberg of the Houston Chronicle

CRITICISM – Mary McNamara of the Los Angeles Times

EDITORIAL WRITING – Kathleen Kingsbury of The Boston Globe

EDITORIAL CARTOONING – Adam Zyglis of The Buffalo News

BREAKING NEWS PHOTOGRAPHY – St. Louis Post-Dispatch Photography Staff

FEATURE PHOTOGRAPHY – Daniel Berehulak , freelance photographer, The New York Times

Books, Drama and Music

FICTION – “All the Light We Cannot See” by Anthony Doerr (Scribner)

DRAMA – “Between Riverside and Crazy” by Stephen Adly Guirgis

HISTORY – “Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People ” by Elizabeth A. Fenn (Hill and Wang)

BIOGRAPHY – “The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe” by David I. Kertzer (Random House)

POETRY – “Digest” by Gregory Pardlo (Four Way Books)

GENERAL NONFICTION – “The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History” by Elizabeth Kolbert (Henry Holt)

MUSIC – “Anthracite Fields” by Julia Wolfe (G. Schirmer, Inc.)

 

Thank you to the following sources:

Pulitzer Prizes website
Pulitzer website biography
Wikipedia biography on Pulitzer
Wikipedia article on yellow journalism
Encylopædia Britannica biography on Pulitzer

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