I use this page to keep track of Pulitzer prize winning fiction I’ve read. At this point, I haven’t read very many, but I’d like to read more. Let me know how many of these you’ve read and what you recommend or don’t recommend. If you’re a blogger, make your own page and comment here with a link to your blog’s Pulitzer Prize fiction page.
“Pulitzer is a word but accomplishment is an aura.”
— Chila Woychik
I’ve gone one step further in evaluating the novels on this list – I looked to Amazon for information on genre, plot and page count, all factors that will help me decide which books to put on my 2020 reading list. (My 2019 reading list is already set in ascii and is only slightly flexible.)
So many books; so little time! Consequently, I don’t believe I’ll ever be able to read all these books unless I live an extraordinary amount of time, therefore I’m identifying books that especially interest me with the heart icon, for the first time on this blog.
I’m not finished with this page yet – but am publishing it anyhow. I’ve already linked back 20 years. Eventually I’d like to get all the book links onto the page for easy examination of them on the Amazon site. My Amazon links provide a little affiliate income for me which is very much appreciated, just in case you go ahead and buy something after using one of my links.
Here’s a Goodreads group of people reading and discussing these books: Tackling the Pulitzer Prize Winners!
♥ – I want to read this
☆ – I own a copy of the book
★★ – I own a copy and am currently reading the book
✓ – Finished (18)
2021
♥ Winner: The Night Watchman, by Louise Erdrich – 464 pages – cultural heritage literary fiction; set in 1953 North Dakota, this is about the rights of Native Americans to their homes and land.
Finalist: A Registry of My Passage Upon the Earth, by Daniel Mason – 240 pages – short stories; tales of struggle for survival, class divisions, need for love and more.
Finalist: Telephone, by Percival Everett – 244 pages – literary fiction; first person stream of consciousness from a geologist/paleobiologist about his work and home life.
2020
✓ Winner: The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead – 224 pages – literary fiction; boys at a reform school – friendships forged and secrets revealed.
♥ Finalist: The Dutch House, by Ann Patchett – 352 pages – coming of age fiction; siblings raised in wealth have to deal with poverty later in life.
Finalist: The Topeka School, by Ben Lerner – 304 pages – coming of age fiction; a high school senior deals with toxic masculinity issues.
2019
✓ Winner: The Overstory, by Richard Powers – 512 pages – literary fiction; trees and the loving preservation of them.
♥ Finalist: The Great Believers, by Rebecca Makkai – 448 pages – coming of age fiction; centers on Chicago and the AIDS epidemic.
Finalist: There There, by Tommy Orange – 304 pages – Native American literature; twelve Native Americans at a powwow.
2018
Winner: Less, by Andrew Sean Greer – 272 pages – humor; a novelist travels the world
♥ Finalist: In the Distance, by Hernan Diaz – 240 pages – western, family saga; a lonely young man travels east from California
Finalist: The Idiot, by Elif Batuman – 432 pages – humor; a Turkish-American girl at Harvard coming of age
2017
Winner: The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead – 336 pages – historical fiction; a woman tries to escape from slavery
Finalist: Imagine Me Gone, by Adam Haslett – 368 pages – literary fiction, family drama; engaged to be married, a man is hospitalized for depression, told by all five members of the family
Finalist: The Sport of Kings, by C.E. Morgan – 560 pages – family saga, sports fiction, literary fiction; two Kentucky families, one white, one black
2016
Winner: The Sympathizer, by Viet Thanh Nguyen – 348 pages – espionage thriller – a French-Vietnamese communist double agent immigrates to California after the war, continuing his espionage
Finalist: Get in Trouble: Stories, by Kelly Link – 368 pages – humor; nine short stories
♥ Finalist: Maud’s Line, by Margaret Verble – 304 pages – historical fiction; a Cherokee girl’s coming of age in Eastern Oklahoma, c.1928
2015
✓ Winner: All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr – 544 pages – war fiction; World War II: a German boy, a French girl . . . what will happen when they meet?
Finalist: Let Me Be Frank with You, by Richard Ford – 256 pages – contemporary fiction; this is part of the Frank Bascombe series; it would be best to start with the other three books: The Sportswriter, Independence Day, and The Lay of the Land
Finalist: The Moor’s Account, by Laila Lalami – 336 pages – ethnic literature; an African slave travels with Spanish conquistadors to America, and is one of four survivors of a shipwreck
Finalist: Lovely, Dark, Deep, by Joyce Carol Oates – 432 pages – short stories; there are thirteen short stories in this collection
2014
✓ Winner: The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt – 771 pages – young adult fiction; a 13 year old boy is in an accident that kills his mother
Finalist: The Son, by Philipp Meyer – 592 pages – western – in Texas a 12 year old boy is kidnapped by the Comanche after his mother and sister are killed
Finalist: The Woman Who Lost Her Soul, by Bob Shacochis – 736 pages – literary fiction – explores fifty years of world history leading up to 9/11
2013
Winner: The Orphan Master’s Son, by Adam Johnson – 442 pages – political thriller; a young man in North Korea gives his loyalty to the country he lives in and loves
Finalist: What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, by Nathan Englander – 240 pages – short stories; eight short stories with a Jewish theme
♥ Finalist: The Snow Child, by Eowyn Ivey – 389 pages – magical realism; in Alaska, 1920, a lonely couple finds a young girl living in the woods
2012
Winner: No award given.
Finalist: Train Dreams, by Denis Johnson – 116 pages – literary fiction; a man living in the American west during the twentieth century witnesses the transformation of his country
Finalist: Swamplandia!, by Karen Russell – 400 pages – women’s fiction; a teenage girl lives at an alligator theme park on an island in Florida
Finalist: The Pale King, by David Foster Wallace (posthumous nominee) – 592 pages – literary fiction; a trainee at the IRS processing center experiences the boredom of the job
2011
Winner: A Visit From the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan – 352 pages – psychological fiction; a novel of interconnected short stories with a contemporary music theme
Finalist: The Privileges, by Jonathan Dee – 288 pages – family saga; a couple with everything given to them is tested by a desire for infinite possibility
Finalist: The Surrendered, by Chang-Rae Lee – 496 pages – ethnic literature; three characters meet at a Korean orphanage; years later there is a reckoning in America
2010
Winner: Tinkers, by Paul Harding – 191 pages – psychological fiction; a dying clock repairman experiences psychological anomalies
Finalist: In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, by Daniyal Mueenuddin – 256 pages – short stories; linked short stories based in Pakistan
Finalist: Love in Infant Monkeys, by Lydia Millet – 177 pages – short stories; ten short stories
2009
Winner: Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout – 320 pages – women’s fiction; a retired schoolteacher grapples with personal and community problems in Maine
Finalist: All Souls, by Christine Schutt – 240 pages – psychological fiction; a girl at a private prep school in NYC falls ill
Finalist: The Plague of Doves, by Louise Erdrich – 352 pages – family saga; in North Dakota, a white and Ojibwe family deals with an unsolved murder
2008
Winner: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Díaz – 339 pages – ethnic fiction; an overweight ghetto dweller wants to find love and write books, but there are problems
Finalist: Shakespeare’s Kitchen, by Lore Segal – 225 pages – short stories; thirteen short stories
Finalist: Tree of Smoke, by Denis Johnson – 720 pages – war fiction; a CIA psychological operations agent in Vietnam and two brothers from Houston deal with disinformation during the war
2007
✓ Winner: The Road, by Cormac McCarthy – 287 pages – post-apocalyptic; a man and his son wander through a destroyed world of peril and darkness
Finalist: After This, by Alice McDermott – 288 pages – family saga; a family challenged by the various paths the children take as young adults
Finalist: The Echo Maker, by Richard Powers – 451 pages – a young man, an accident, a coma, and a neurological anomaly – what could it mean?
2006
☆ Winner: March, by Geraldine Brooks – 320 pages – epistolary fiction; the absent father of the March girls (Little Women) and the Civil War
Finalist: The Bright Forever, by Lee Martin – 304 pages – family saga; a nine year old Indiana girl disappears while cycling to her library
Finalist: The March, by E. L. Doctorow – 363 pages – war fiction; Sherman’s march to the sea, through Georgia during the Civil War
2005
✓ Winner: Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson – 247 pages – epistolary fiction; a dying pastor writes a journal for his very young son
Finalist: An Unfinished Season, by Ward Just – 256 pages – literary fiction; 1950’s, Cold War, family drama
Finalist: War Trash, by Ha Jin – 368 pages – war fiction; Chinese men in a POW camp during the Korean War
2004
Winner: The Known World, by Edward P. Jones – 432 pages – ethnic fiction; a black farmer’s transition to freedom after slavery
Finalist: American Woman, by Susan Choi – 369 pages – psychological fiction; a young female fugitive cares for other fugitives after an act of violence against the government
Finalist: Evidence of Things Unseen, by Marianne Wiggin – 400 pages – war fiction; a Tennessee man between the two world wars
2003
✓ Winner: Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides – 544 pages – family saga; a child is born as a hermaphrodite and this is the story of her/his life
Finalist: Servants of the Map, by Andrea Barrett – 320 pages – short stories; six stories from various locales, including Theories of Rain and The Mysteries of Ubiquitin
Finalist: You Are Not a Stranger Here, by Adam Haslett – 256 pages – short stories; also classified as psychological fiction since many characters are depressed
2002
Winner: Empire Falls, by Richard Russo – 483 pages – psychological humor; blue collar workers issues in small town America.
Finalist: The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen – 576 pages – literary fiction; a mother wants her children home for one last Christmas dinner.
Finalist: John Henry Days, by Colson Whitehead – 385 pages – men’s adventure fiction; a black railroad worker dies while outdistancing a machine – an American legend retold.
2001
Winner: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, by Michael Chabon – 684 pages – humorous literature; two boys making up fantasy heroes.
Finalist: Blonde, by Joyce Carol Oates – 752 pages – biographical historic fiction; a reimagining of the life of Marilyn Monroe.
Finalist: The Quick and the Dead, by Joy Williams – 320 pages – western literary fiction; adventures of three teenagers in the American desert.
2000
Winner: Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri – 198 pages – paranormal & urban fantasy short stories; deals with the universal feelings of foreigners.
Finalist: Close Range: Wyoming Stories, by Annie Proulx – 285 pages – literary short stories; stories of desperation and elation set in Wyoming.
Finalist: Waiting, by Ha Jin – 308 pages – literary fiction; love triangle during the Chinese Cultural Revolution.
1999
Winner: The Hours, by Michael Cunningham – 240 pages – literary fiction; Virginia Woolf’s last days and a storyteller and his friend.
Finalist: The HoursCloudsplitter, by Russell Banks – 768 pages – literary fiction; first person pre-civil war era narration by the son of John Brown, abolitionist who used violence to fight slavery.
✓ Finalist: The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver – 576 pages – literary fiction; an evangelical missionary family in Africa.
1998
Winner: American Pastoral, by Philip Roth – 423 pages – literary fiction; a man achieves the American dream only to have his daughter go berserk.
Finalist: Bear and His Daughter: Stories, by Robert Stone – 222 pages – short story collection
Finalist: Underworld, by Don DeLillo – 848 pages – classic literature – an artist and an executive connect in the 50’s and again in the 90’s.
1997
Winner: Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer, by Steven Millhauser – 293 pages – biographical historical fiction; a man’s rise from a humble job to the top of his field, and his sisters.
Finalist: The Manikin, by Joanna Scott – 228 pages – coming of age fiction; a taxidermist and the daughter of his indentured servant.
Finalist: Unlocking the Air and Other Stories, by Ursula K. Le Guin – 207 pages – short stories; magical realism and surrealism.
1996
Winner: Independence Day, by Richard Ford – 463 pages – book 2 in the Bascombe Trilogy. The first book is The Sportswriter, so I’d read that one first. The third novel in the series is The Lay of the Land.
Finalist: Mr. Ives’ Christmas, by Oscar Hijuelos – 256 pages – not a happy Christmas story; themes are grief, loss of faith, and forgiveness.
Finalist: Sabbath’s Theater, by Philip Roth – 451 pages – contemporary literary fiction; extreme sinner Mickey Sabbath is the MC.
1995
Winner: The Stone Diaries, by Carol Shields – 384 pages – literary fiction; from birth to old age, this is the life of Daisy Stone Goodwill.
Finalist: The Collected Stories of Grace Paley, by Grace Paley – 400 pages – short stories
Finalist: What I Lived For, by Joyce Carol Oates – 624 pages – psychological fiction; a corrupt man reels as it all falls down.
1994
Winner: The Shipping News, by E. Annie Proulx
Finalist: The Collected Stories of Reynolds Price, by Reynolds Price
Finalist: Operation Shylock: A Confession, by Philip Roth
1993
Winner: A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, by Robert Olen Butler
Finalist: At Weddings and Wakes, by Alice McDermott
Finalist: Black Water, by Joyce Carol Oates
1992
Winner: A Thousand Acres, by Jane Smiley
Finalist: Jernigan, by David Gates
Finalist: Lila: An Inquiry into Morals, by Robert M. Pirsig
Finalist: Mao II, by Don DeLillo
1991
Winner: Rabbit at Rest, by John Updike
Finalist: Mean Spirit, by Linda Hogan
Finalist: The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien
1990
Winner: The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, by Oscar Hijuelos
Finalist: Billy Bathgate, by E. L. Doctorow
1989
Winner: Breathing Lessons, by Anne Tyler
Finalist: Where I’m Calling From, by Raymond Carver
1988
✓ Winner: Beloved, by Toni Morrison
Finalist: Persian Nights, by Diane Johnson
Finalist: That Night, by Alice McDermott
1987
Winner: A Summons to Memphis, by Peter Taylor
Finalist: Paradise, by Donald Barthelme
Finalist: Whites, by Norman Rush
1986
✓ Winner: Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry
Finalist: The Accidental Tourist, by Anne Tyler
Finalist: Continental Drift, by Russell Banks
1985
Winner: Foreign Affairs, by Alison Lurie
Finalist: I Wish This War Were Over, by Diana O’Hehir
Finalist: Leaving the Land, by Douglas Unger
1984
Winner: Ironweed, by William Kennedy
Finalist: Cathedral, by Raymond Carver
Finalist: The Feud, by Thomas Berger
1983
✓ Winner: The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
Finalist: Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, by Anne Tyler
Finalist: Rabbis and Wives, by Chaim Grade
1982
Winner: Rabbit Is Rich, by John Updike
Finalist: A Flag for Sunrise, by Robert Stone
Finalist: Housekeeping, by Marilynne Robinson
1981
Winner: A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole (posthumous win)
Finalist: Godric, by Frederick Buechner
Finalist: So Long, See You Tomorrow, by William Maxwell
1980
Winner: The Executioner’s Song, by Norman Mailer
Finalist: Birdy, by William Wharton
Finalist: The Ghost Writer, by Philip Roth
1979
Winner: The Stories of John Cheever, by John Cheever
1978
Winner: Elbow Room, by James Alan McPherson
1977
Winner: No award given
Finalist: A River Runs Through It, by Norman MacLean
Finalist: Roots, by Alex Haley (special Pulitzer Prize)
1976
Winner: Humboldt’s Gift, by Saul Bellow
1975
Winner: The Killer Angels, by Michael Shaara
1974
Winner: No award given
Finalist: Gravity’s Rainbow, by Thomas Pynchon
1973
Winner: The Optimist’s Daughter, by Eudora Welty
1972
☆ Winner: Angle of Repose, by Wallace Stegner
1971
Winner: No award given
1970
Winner: The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford, by Jean Stafford
1969
Winner: House Made of Dawn, by N. Scott Momaday
1968
Winner: The Confessions of Nat Turner, by William Styron
1967
Winner: The Fixer, by Bernard Malamud
1966
Winner: The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter, by Katherine Anne Porter
1965
Winner: The Keepers of the House, by Shirley Ann Grau
1964
Winner: No award given
1963
Winner: The Reivers by William Faulkner, (posthumous win)
1961
✓ Winner: To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
1960
Winner: Advise and Consent, by Allen Drury
1959
Winner: The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters, by Robert Lewis Taylor
1958
✓ Winner: A Death in the Family, by James Agee (posthumous win)
1957
No award given
Finalist: The Voice At The Back Door, by Elizabeth Spencer
1956
Winner: Andersonville, by MacKinlay Kantor
1955
Winner: A Fable, by William Faulkner
1954
Winner: No award given
1953
✓ Winner: The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway
1952
Winner: The Caine Mutiny, by Herman Wouk
1951
Winner: The Town, by Conrad Richter
1950
Winner: The Way West, by A. B. Guthrie, Jr.
1949
Winner: Guard of Honor, by James Gould Cozzens
1948
Winner: Tales of the South Pacific, by James A. Michener
1947
Winner: All the King’s Men, by Robert Penn Warren
1946
Winner: no award given
1945
Winner: A Bell for Adano, by John Hersey
1944
Winner: Journey in the Dark, by Martin Flavin
1943
Winner: Dragon’s Teeth, by Upton Sinclair
1942
Winner: In This Our Life, by Ellen Glasgow
1941
Winner: no award given
1940
✓ Winner: The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
1939
✓ Winner: The Yearling, by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
1938
Winner: The Late George Apley, by John Phillips Marquand
1937
✓ Winner: Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell
1936
Winner: Honey in the Horn, by Harold L. Davis
1935
Winner: Now in November, by Josephine Winslow Johnson
1934
Winner: Lamb in His Bosom, by Caroline Miller
1933
Winner: The Store, by Thomas Sigismund Stribling
1932
✓ Winner: The Good Earth, by Pearl S. Buck
1931
Winner: Years of Grace, by Margaret Ayer Barnes
1930
Winner: Laughing Boy, by Oliver La Farge
1929
Winner: Scarlet Sister Mary, by Julia Peterkin
1928
Winner: The Bridge of San Luis Rey, by Thornton Wilder
1927
Winner: Early Autumn, by Louis Bromfield
1926
Winner: Arrowsmith, by Sinclair Lewis (declined prize)
1925
Winner: So Big, by Edna Ferber
1924
Winner: The Able McLaughlins, by Margaret Wilson
1923
Winner: One of Ours, by Willa Cather
1922
Winner: Alice Adams, by Booth Tarkington
1921
Winner: The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton
1920
Winner: no award given
1919
Winner: The Magnificent Ambersons, by Booth Tarkington
1918
Winner: His Family, by Ernest Poole – 352 pages – classic American fiction; A New York man tries to build bridges of understanding with his adult daughters just prior to World War I.
I’ve only read a few of these, and not because they were on this list. The most recently published of them I’ve read is A River Runs Through It, by Norman MacLean. I enjoyed Angle of Repose, by Wallace Stegner. He’s a fabulous writer. I read Advise and Consent, by Allen Drury, but it was so long ago I hardly remember it. It’s also been decades since I read Andersonville, by MacKinlay Kantor, but it made an indelible impression on me.
I’ve read The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway, but I’ve enjoyed many of his other books more. I read The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck and almost everything else by Steinbeck when I was a young adult, but when I considered having my 15-year-old daughter read it during our unit on California history, I reread it and changed my mind. I felt it was too mature for who she was at that time. It did make an impression on me. So did The Good Earth by Pearl Buck. I can’t see a dried bean without thinking of that book.
Gone with the Wind was pure pleasure. I read it in high school. I didn’t read Arrowsmith, by Sinclair Lewis , but I did a paper on Sinclair Lewis in college. I stuck to Elmer Gantry, Babbitt, Main Street, and some others for that paper. I didn’t read So Big, by Edna Ferber, but I loved Showboat. I read that after hearing the soundtrack for the movie and I wanted to know the story behind it. I never saw the movie. I’ve not read One of Ours, by Willa Cather, but I have read My Antonia.
I generally don’t pick my reads from award winners. I pick my books by friend recommendations and browsing library shelves or bookstores to see what grabs my interest. And I confess that BookBud deals often influence me because free is nice.
Hi Barbara, so good to see you here. Are you still writing at Medium? Now that I’m in a home again I’ve been thinking of doing that. I’ve heard several people lately mention that Angle of Repose is good and I’m intrigued and want to read it. Loved Grapes of Wrath and read it in 7th grade, right after Oliver Twist. I went through a John Steinbeck phase and read everything of his that I had access to at the time. Babbit is on my TBR list. I do tend to choose books from award lists and “top 100” type lists. I always wonder what is lurking behind the covers of a well-known book.