Pulitzer Prize: fiction

In his will, publisher Joseph Pulitzer provided funding to create the Pulitzer Prize. The first prize for a novel was awarded in 1918. It was replaced by a fiction prize in 1948. Tastes change, in fiction as in all things. Some of the older books are forgotten now. But others remain popular, or at least well-known and respected.

2024: Night Watch, by Jayne Anne Phillips

2023: Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver; and Trust, by Hernan Diaz

2022: The Netanyahus, by Joshua Cohen

2021: The Night Watchman, by Louise Erdrich

2020: The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead

2019: The Overstory, by Richard Powers

2018: Less, by Andrew Sean Greer

2017: The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead

2016: The Sympathizer, by Viet Thanh Nguyen

2015: All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr

2014: The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt

2013: The Orphan Master’s Son, by Adam Johnson

2011: A Visit from the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan

2010: Tinkers, by Paul Harding

2009: Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout

2008: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz

2007: The Road, by Cormac McCarthy

2006: March, by Geraldine Brooks

2005: Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson

2004: The Known World, by Edward P. Jones

2003: Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides

2002: Empire Falls, by Richard Russo

2001: The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier & Clay, by Michael Chabon

2000: Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri

1999: The Hours, by Michael Cunningham

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

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

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

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

1976: Humboldt’s Gift, by Saul Bellow

1975: The Killer Angels, by Michael Shara

1973: The Optimist’s Daughter, by Eudora Welty

1972: Angle of Repose, by Wallace Stegner

1970: Collected Stories, by Jean Stafford

1969: House Made of Dawn, by N. Scott

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

1963: The Reivers, by William Faulkner

1962: The Edge of Sadness, by Edwin O’Connor

1961: To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

1960: Advise and Consent, by Allen Drury

1959: The Travels of Jailie McPheeters, by Robert Lewis Taylor

1958: A Death in the Family, by James Agee

1956: Andersonville, by MacKinlay Kantor

1955: A Fable, by William Faulkner

1953: The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway

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 Cozens

1948: Tales of the South Pacific, by James A. Michener

1947: All the King’s Men, by Robert Penn Warren

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

1940: The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck

1939: The Yearling, by Marjorie Kinnan

1938: The Late George Apley, by John Phillips Marquand

1937: Gone With the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell

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

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

1919: The Magnificent Ambersons, by Booth Tarkington

1918: His Family, by Ernest Poole