06/13/2021
Here's the 2021 Pulitzer Prizes. What do you think?
BOOKS, DRAMA & MUSIC
Fiction WINNER
The Night Watchman, by Louise Erdrich (Harper)
A majestic, polyphonic novel about a community’s efforts to halt the proposed displacement and elimination of several Native American tribes in the 1950s, rendered with dexterity and imagination.
FINALISTS
A Registry of My Passage Upon the Earth, by Daniel Mason (Little, Brown and Company)
Telephone, by Percival Everett (Graywolf Press)
Drama WINNER
The Hot Wing King, by Katori Hall
A funny, deeply felt consideration of Black masculinity and how it is perceived, filtered through the experiences of a loving gay couple and their extended family as they prepare for a culinary competition.
FINALISTS
Circle Jerk, by Michael Breslin and Patrick Foley
Stew, by Zora Howard
History WINNER
Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America, by Marcia Chatelain (Liveright/Norton)
A nuanced account of the complicated role the fast-food industry plays in African-American communities, a portrait of race and capitalism that masterfully illustrates how the fight for civil rights has been intertwined with the fate of Black businesses.
FINALISTS
The Deviant’s War: The Homosexual vs. the United States of America, by Eric Cervini (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
The Three-Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West, by Megan Kate Nelson (Scribner)
Biography WINNER
The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X, by the late Les Payne and Tamara Payne (Liveright/Norton)
A powerful and revelatory account of the civil rights activist, built from dozens of interviews, offering insight into his character, beliefs and the forces that shaped him.
FINALISTS
Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath, by Heather Clark (Alfred A. Knopf)
Stranger in the Shogun’s City: A Japanese Woman and Her World, by Amy Stanley (Scribner)
Poetry WINNER
Postcolonial Love Poem, by Natalie Diaz (Graywolf Press)
A collection of tender, heart-wrenching and defiant poems that explore what it means to love and be loved in an America beset by conflict.
FINALISTS
A Treatise on Stars, by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge (New Directions)
In the Lateness of the World, by Carolyn Forché (Penguin Press)
General Nonfiction WINNER
Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy, by David Zucchino (Atlantic Monthly Press)
A gripping account of the overthrow of the elected government of a Black-majority North Carolina city after Reconstruction that untangles a complicated set of power dynamics cutting across race, class and gender.
FINALISTS
Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning, by Cathy Park Hong (One World/Random House)
Yellow Bird: Oil, Murder, and a Woman's Search for Justice in Indian Country, by Sierra Crane Murdoch (Random House)
Music WINNER
Stride, by Tania León (Peermusic Classical)
Premiered at David Geffen Hall, Lincoln Center, New York City on February 13, 2020, a musical journey full of surprise, with powerful brass and rhythmic motifs that incorporate Black music traditions from the US and the Caribbean into a Western orchestral fabric.
FINALISTS
Data Lords, by Maria Schneider
Place, by Ted Hearne
SPECIAL CITATIONS
Special Awards and Citations
Darnella Frazier
For courageously recording the murder of George Floyd, a video that spurred protests against police brutality around the world, highlighting the crucial role of citizens in journalists' quest for truth and justice.
