In his 1904 will, Joseph Pulitzer established a prize to be awarded in journalism and the arts. Since 1917 the prizes have been awarded to those works which presented excellence in their medium across a broad range of the arts including journalism, literature, and music. This list below captures those award winners which I have read in my life long project to read as many of the great works as possible.
2023 - Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (Fiction)
2022 - The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen (Fiction)
2021 - The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich (Fiction)
2019 - The Overstory by Richard Powers (Fiction)
2017 - The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (Fiction)
2015 - All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (Fiction)
2014 - The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (Fiction)
2013 - The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson (Fiction)
2011 - A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (Fiction) / Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow (Biography)
2009 - American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham (Biography)
2007 - The Road by Cormac McCarthy (Fiction) / The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright (General Nonfiction)
2003 - Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (Fiction)
2002 - John Adams by David McCullough (Biography)
2001 - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon (Fiction)
1998 - American Pastoral by Philip Roth (Fiction) / Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond (General Nonfiction)
1997 - Martin Dressler by Steven Millhauser (Fiction) / Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourt (Biography)
1993 - A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Butler (Fiction)
1992 - A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley (Fiction)
1989 - Parting the Water: America in the King Years 1954-1963 by Taylor Branch (History)
1988 - The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes (General Nonfiction)
1986 - Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (Fiction)
1981 - A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (Fiction)
1980 - The Executioner’s Song by Norman Mailer (Fiction)
1967 - The Fixer by Bernard Malamud (Fiction)
1961 - To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee (Fiction)
1953 - The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (Fiction)
1952 - The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk (Fiction)
1948 - Tales of the South Pacific by James Michener (Fiction)