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Recent Pulitzer Prize winners
These books won one of literature’s most prestigious awards since 2020.
Published on September 26, 2023
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Demon Copperhead: A Novel
Barbara Kingsolver2023 Fiction Winner: Kingsolver’s tale, inspired by Charles Dickens’ “David Copperfield,” follows a young boy’s difficult coming-of-age in modern day Appalachia. Born to a teen mom, the protagonist faces poverty, the foster system, and eventual substance abuse as he navigates life and tests his independence. An Oprah's Book Club pick, this is a rich epic that explores the people and places forgotten by society.
Covered with Night: A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early America
Nicole Eustace2022 History Winner: Indigenous peoples weren’t savages, and white settlers were far from morally pristine in colonial America. “Covered with Night” shatters the prevailing narrative by revealing the hidden history of one Indigenous man’s murder at the hands of white colonists, and the subsequent ideological clashes that almost led to war. Eustace’s work provides critical context to discussions about reparations and what constitutes justice today.
Cuba (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize): An American History
Alma Cuervo2022 History Winner: Ferrer, a Cuban American professor, sharply intertwines five centuries worth of history between the island nation and its towering neighbor. This thorough history sets the record straight about the fraught relationship between Cuba and the United States, and shows how the fates and fortunes of the two counties are tied to each other.
The Night Watchman
Louise Erdrich2021 Fiction Winner: Erdrich’s sweeping family novel, based on her grandfather’s life fighting against America’s Indian termination policies in the 1950s, won one the literary world’s highest honors. The titular night watchman, Thomas Wazhashk, protects a factory full of precious gemstones and women workers who are members of the Turtle Mountain clan from would-be thieves (like the United States government). Familial love sustains the interconnected cast of characters through both personal and political turmoil.
Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America
Marcia Chatelain2021 History Winner: Chatelain, a Georgetown University professor who grew up loving McDonald’s, relays the positive and negative effects of fast food expansion in America on Black communities. On the one hand, McDonald’s brings jobs and entrepreneurial opportunity; on the other, it’s cheap food that doesn’t truly nourish the body or the community. Yet, “increasingly, as fast food expanded, the choice between a McDonald’s and no McDonald’s was actually a choice between a McDonald’s or no youth job program,” Chatelain writes. This is a must-read deep-dive on the duality that the Golden Arches represent.
The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X
Les Payne2021 Biography Winner: Renowned journalist Les Payne compiled hundreds of hours of interviews with people who knew Malcolm X personally, from siblings and classmates to cellmates and cops. After his death, Payne’s daughter Tamara completed this Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning biography, which aims to paint a more accurate portrait of the civil rights activist, from his birth in Nebraska to his assassination in Harlem.
Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy
David Zucchino2021 General Nonfiction Winner: A little-known history about how white supremacists in Wilmington, North Carolina, led a successful coup and overthrew a mixed-race, democratically elected local government in 1898 — an incident that set America’s racial progress back for decades to come. Zucchino’s well-researched account is horrifying and heartbreaking, and a much-needed history lesson for an America that only recently made Juneteenth a holiday and is still grappling with reparations.
A Strange Loop
Michael R. Jackson2020 Drama Winner: Jackson’s layered musical follows Usher, a queer Black artist writing a musical about a queer Black artist who’s also writing a musical (the titular “strange loop”). Funny and relatable, the production touches on race, sexuality, identity, and the pressure to succeed in a world brimming with talented competition. “A Strange Loop” premiered on Broadway in April, 2022.
Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America
W. Caleb McDaniel2020 History Winner: McDaniel presents the true story of Henrietta Wood, a Black woman who was freed from slavery in 1848 only to be wrongfully reenslaved in 1853. Wood went on to secure her freedom once again before suing her captor, ultimately winning $2,500 — a sum that continues to be the largest slavery restitution payout in American history. McDaniel skillfully weaves a historical account with commentary on present-day politics and systemic racism in this astonishing story of perseverance and justice.
Sontag: Her Life and Work: A Pulitzer Prize Winner
Benjamin Moser2020 Biography Winner: Late activist, critic, and writer Susan Sontag was both influential and controversial, writing essays that dissected everything from feminism to AIDS to America's military endeavors. “Sontag” is as meticulous as it is engaging, based on hours of interviews and Sontag’s never-before-accessed personal musings. Biographer Moser goes far beyond public knowledge, giving readers a comprehensive look at one of the most complex public figures in American history and the vulnerabilities that fueled her work.
The Tradition
Jericho Brown2020 Poetry Winner: Brown’s “The Tradition” is mesmerizing in both intent and presentation. Written in the author’s original poetic form dubbed “duplex,” this moving collection explores race, fatherhood, and sexual trauma with unmatched nuance and creativity. It’s “a collection of masterful lyrics that combine delicacy with historical urgency in their loving evocation of bodies vulnerable to hostility and violence,” according to the Pulitzer Prize judges.
The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America
Greg Grandin2020 General Nonfiction Winner: “The End of Myth” dives deep into America’s longstanding history of expansion and exploration, and how President Trump’s infamous border wall idea fuels a newfound mindset of self-isolation and nationalism. Historian Grandin explores the frontier — the idea that drove many of the nation’s policies and actions since its inception — and how it was used to distract Americans from systemic racism and colonialism. This book is a thought-provoking read for anyone interested in the evolution of U.S. ideals and politics.
The Undying: Pain, vulnerability, mortality, medicine, art, time, dreams, data, exhaustion, cancer, and care
Anne Boyer2020 General Nonfiction Winner: Poet Boyer’s memoir discusses her battle with aggressive breast cancer, from diagnosis in her forties to the devastating effects of chemo and her eventual double mastectomy. But “The Undying” is far more than a chronicle of illness. Instead, it’s both a catharsis and an indictment, giving an eye-opening glimpse of how women and artists deal with a stigmatized diagnosis — and how America’s capitalism informs (and degrades) its healthcare.