The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is one of the most prestigious awards in American letters. Established by legendary newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer, it has been awarded to authors since 1918.*
The Pulitzer Advisory Council, an 18-member body of journalists and academics, appoints three people to the Fiction Jury each year. After spending months reading hundreds of submissions, the jury presents three recommendations to the board members, who choose the winner. this process has occasionally generated controversy throughout the award’s 100-year history. the advisory board has reversed the jury’s decision on several occasions and in some years, most recently in 2012, refused to offer any prizes.
You are reading: Must read pulitzer prize winning books
The only true qualification of the award is that it must go to a book written by a US citizen. With that in mind, I have chosen 30 books that, in my opinion, best illustrate the history and scope of the United States. my choices, listed alphabetically by title, are listed below.
*was known as the pulitzer prize for novels until 1948, when the name was changed and it was expanded to include collections of short stories.
the age of innocence by edith wharton
year granted: 1921
first line: “one january afternoon in the early seventies, christine nilsson was singing in faust at the new york academy of music”.
Description: Wharton’s novel delves into the world of New York high society during the golden age of the 1870s. Countess Ellen Olenska, the beautiful cousin of the fiancée of the protagonist, has fled Europe and a failed marriage. Her presence, shocking and embarrassing the family, leaves a deep impression on Newland Archer, the protagonist, as he struggles to cope with the extent of her attraction to her.
Fun fact: Wharton was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for her novel.
all the king’s men by robert penn warren
year granted: 1947
first line: “to get there you have to follow highway 58, leaving the city to the northeast, and it is a good and new road.”
Description: Warren’s novel follows the rise of politician Willie Stark from a weak-willed lawyer to a powerful and cynical governor in a southern state in the 1930s. The story is told by Jack Burden, a former reporter who works for the Governor.
trivia: the title is based on the children’s song “humpty dumpty sat on a wall”.
american pastoral by philip roth
year of award: 1998
first line: “the Swedish. during the war years, when i was still an elementary school kid, this was a magical name in our newark neighborhood, even for adults who were barely a generation past the city’s old prince street ghetto and not yet so perfectly Americanized enough to be blown away by the prowess of a high school athlete.”
Description: Roth’s sixth novel depicts Seymour “Swede” Levov’s downward spiral as the turbulence of 1960s America collides with his successful middle-class life. The story is narrated by Swede’s former classmate, Nathan Zuckerman, who is said to be an alter ego of Roth. Years after Nathan graduated from high school, he returns to Newark to discover that Swede’s daughter has detonated a bomb at a post office in protest of the Vietnam War, killing an innocent bystander.
Trivia: In 2016, the book was adapted into a film starring Ewan McGregor as “Swede,” Jennifer Connelly as Swede’s wife, Alba, and Dakota Fanning as their daughter, Meredith.
wallace stegner’s angle of repose
year of concession: 1972
first line: “now I think they will leave me alone”.
Description: Stegner’s novel follows historian Lyman Ward as he leaves his profession and living family behind to re-create the lives of his grandparents, settlers on the American western frontier.
Trivia: The novel is based on letters written by Mary Hallock Foote, a writer and artist whose books documented life in the early 20th century American West.
reelmaker by sinclair lewis
year granted: 1926
first line: “the driver of the wagon that swung through the woods and swamp of the ohio desert was a ragged fourteen-year-old girl.”
Description: Lewis’s novel follows Martin Arrowsmith, a young scientist who rises to a powerful position in the scientific community, only to give it up in favor of a quiet life in rural Vermont. Science writer Paul de Kruif helped Lewis write the book and received 25 percent of the book’s royalties.
trivia: lewis, who was denied the prize in 1921 (the advisory board decided his novel main street was not “wholesome” and awarded the prize to edith wharton instead), refused the award, stating that “all awards, like all titles, are dangerous”.
loved by toni morrison
year of award: 1988
first line: “124 was spiteful”.
Description: Morrison’s fifth novel is the story of a runaway slave who kills her own son before letting southern slave owners recapture her. years later, the spirit of the dead girl returns to haunt her mother.
trivia: the toni morrison society is a group that donates benches to sites in the united states that played host to some of the most lurid scenes in slavery history. the group was inspired to do so by morrison, who gave a speech shortly after the publication of beloved in which he noted that there wasn’t even a “little bench by the road” to acknowledge many of the places where the cruelties of slavery took place.
the san luis rey bridge by thornton wilder
year granted: 1928
first line: “at noon on Friday July 20, 1714, the most beautiful bridge in all of Peru broke and plunged five travelers into the gulf below”.
Description: Thornton’s novel follows Brother Juniper, a Franciscan friar on a five-year quest to interview everyone who knew the five victims of the terrible tragedy he witnessed in Peru. As the friar meets the families and friends of the victims, he begins to ponder the “direction and meaning of lives beyond [our] own will.”
trivia: john hersey used the san luis rey bridge as inspiration for his groundbreaking journalistic work, hiroshima, which explored the explosion of the atomic bomb through the perspectives of five survivors.
the brief and wonderful life of oscar wao by junot diaz
year of award: 2008
first line: “they say that it came first from Africa, carried in the cries of the enslaved; that it was the death curse of the Tainos, pronounced just when one world perished and another began; that he was a demon drawn into creation through the nightmare gate that opened in the antilles.”
Description: Díaz’s fast-paced novel is narrated by Yunior, a Dominican-American who remembers the tragicomic life and death of his friend Oscar de León, obsessed with comics. Oscar, like Yunior, is the son of Dominican parents who fled the Dominican Republic to the industrial wasteland of New Jersey. The novel moves seamlessly between its history, Oscar’s comics-influenced imagination, and the recent history of the Dominican Republic, which was ruled by a sadistic dictator named Rafael Trujillo until he was assassinated in 1961.
trivia: Diaz’s book often uses Spanglish.
the purple color of alice walker
year of award: 1983
first line: “it is better that you never tell anyone but god”.
description: walker’s novel follows celie, a young black woman from the southern united states, who leaves her home and struggles to make a meaningful life for herself in the face of poverty and cruelty. . celie is beaten and abused by many of the men in her life; Seeking some meaning in her struggles, she begins to write a series of autobiographical letters (initially addressed to God), which make up the bulk of the novel. Eventually, a friendship with an older woman takes on an erotic charge, offering a way out of Celie’s troubles.
Fun fact: The 1985 film adaptation of Steven Spielberg’s novel came at a fortuitous moment for a young Oprah Winfrey. She starred in the film as Sofia, one of the book’s central characters, and it was released a year before she launched The Oprah Winfrey Show.
a confederation of fools by john kennedy toole
year of award: 1981
first line: “a green hunting cap pressed against the top of a fleshy globe of a head.”
Description: Toole’s novel follows Ignatius J. reilly, a hilarious, lazy critic of modernity and failed writer who bores his friends and exasperates his mother, with whom he still lives at 30. Reilly’s musings on pop culture, hot dogs, and an aborted trip to Baton Rouge (his only attempt to get out of New Orleans) are wildly over-the-top and always salted with a strong hint of humor.
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Fun facts: There have been several failed attempts to adapt the book into a movie. The untimely deaths of several comedians who had signed on to play Reilly, including John Belushi and John Candy, prompted Steven Soderburgh to declare the project “cursed.”
for whom the bell tolls by ernest hemingway
year granted: 1941*
first line: “he was lying on the brown forest floor, his chin resting on his crossed arms, and the wind was blowing high up in the tops of the pine trees. ”
Description: Hemingway’s novel takes place in 1937 during the second year of the Spanish Civil War: a gruesome conflict between a fractured anarchist communist and republican front on one side, and the fascist nationalists led by Francisco Franco on the other. follows Robert Jordan, an American who has signed up to fight with the international brigades against Franco’s forces, on a failed mission beyond enemy lines. Hemingway wrote the novel based on his experiences as a newspaper reporter in Spain during the war.
trivia: *the fiction award jury unanimously recommended the novel for the award, and the advisory board agreed. However, Nicholas Murray Butler, then president of Columbia University (which oversees the awards), strongly refused, stating that he found the book “offensive”. No fiction prize was awarded that year, but the book is included in this list thanks to the unanimous decision of the jury.
gone with the wind by margaret mitchell
year granted: 1937
first line: “scarlett o’hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realize it when they are caught by her charm like the tarleton twins were.”
Description: Mitchell’s novel, one of the most influential in the American canon, is the coming-of-age story of Scarlett O’Hara, the daughter of a Georgian slave owner. . Scarlett’s multiple marriages, including her iconic relationship with Rhett Butler, take place against the backdrop of the Civil War and Reconstruction era.
Trivia: The 1939 film adaptation of Gone with the Wind is a Hollywood movie classic. Hattie McDaniel, who played the role of Mammy, was the first African-American actress to win an Oscar.
the grapes of wrath by john steinbeck
year granted: 1940
first line: “to the red country and part of the gray country of oklahoma, the last rains fell gently and did not cut the scarred land.”
Description: Steinbeck’s novel follows the Joad family on their journey from oklahoma devastated by the dust deposit to california in search of work during the great depression. But work in California is hard to come by, and the pressures of uncontrolled capitalism drive the family into tragedy.
Trivia: Steinbeck wrote the novel based on notes taken by writer Sanora Babb, who collected stories about immigrant farm workers in California in the 1930s. He wrote a novel based on their interviews called whose names are unknown, but it was not published until 2004 after being overshadowed by the grapes of wrath.
rainbow of gravity by thomas pynchon
year of concession: 1974*
first line: “a scream crosses the sky”.
Description: Pynchon’s wild third novel is a fixture in the American postmodern canon. Set in Europe at the end of World War II, it is loosely structured around the design of the German V-2 rocket.
trivia: *the book was denied the book award by the pulitzer advisory board, even though it was unanimously recommended by the 1974 jury for fiction. the board was offended by the content and no prize was awarded that year. but it is still included in this list thanks to that unanimous decision of the jury.
the hours of michael cunningham
year of award: 1999
first line: “she runs out of the house, wearing a coat too heavy for the weather.”
description: an extended homage to virginia woolf and her novel mrs. dalloway, cunningham’s novel maps the mental landscapes of three women separated by generations but united by their affinity with woolf’s main character.
trivia: mrs. dalloway was originally titled the hours.
house made of dawn by n. scott’s mom
year of award: 1969
first line: “dypaloh. there was a house made of dawn.”
Description: Momaday’s novel follows Abel, a young Native American who left his reservation in New Mexico to fight in World War II. As he struggles to reintegrate into reservation life, he descends into drinking and eventually murder. His downward spiral continues in Los Angeles, only stopping when he returns to New Mexico to care for his dying grandfather.
Fun facts: Momaday, a member of the Kiowa tribe, grew up on various reservations throughout his childhood. a house made of dawn is drawn from the memories of his life in the town of jemez in new mexico.
in this our life by ellen glasgow
year granted: 1942
first line: “the street was darkened by a smoky sunset, and the lamps near the empty house had not yet been lit.”
Description: The Glasgow novel follows the Timberlake family as their money and influence fade in the American South at the end of the Great Depression. in this our life explores how Americans’ biased ideas about race can ruin lives.
trivia: the novel was made into a film in 1942. however, its candid portrayal of race relations in the southern united states made it controversial and the now-defunct u.s. the censorship bureau denied permission for publication abroad.
sickness interpreter by jhumpa lahiri
year of concession: 2000
first line: “the notice informed them that it was a temporary matter: for five days their electricity would be cut off for one hour, starting at eight at night.”
Description: Lahiri’s debut features nine short stories that follow the lives of Indians and Native Americans as they struggle to determine their place in the world.
curiosities: the book has sold more than 15 million copies worldwide.
to kill a mockingbird by harper lee
year granted: 1961
first line: “when I was almost thirteen, my brother jem badly broke his arm at the elbow.”
Description: Lee’s novel is narrated by a scout finch years after he has grown up and left his hometown of Maycomb, Alabama far behind. Scout recalls how, as a fearless six-year-old, she watched her father atticus defend a black man who had been wrongfully accused of a crime she did not commit.
Fun Facts: Gregory Peck, who played Atticus in the award-winning 1962 film adaptation of the book, named his grandson Harper after his longtime friendship with the author.
the kings of mambo play love songs by oscar hijuelos
year of concession: 1990
first line: “it was a saturday afternoon in calle la salle, years and years ago when i was a little boy, and around three in the morning mrs. Shannon, the heavy Irish woman in her always soup-stained dress, opened the back window and yelled out into the yard, ‘hey Cesar, yoo-hoo, I think you’re on TV, I swear it’s you!’”
Description: Hijuelos second novel follows two Cuban brothers who emigrate to New York City in the 1950s. As musicians, they entertain their friends and family with Caribbean-inspired melodies and They briefly experience a flash of fame when their friend Desi Arnaz, the real-life actor who played Ricky Ricardo on I Love Lucy, invites them to perform a song on the show.
trivia: hijuelos was the first Latino author to win the award.
middlesex by jeffrey eugenides
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year of award: 2003
first line: “I was born twice: first, as a girl, on a remarkably smog-free Detroit day in January 1960; And then again, as a teenager, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August 1974.”
Description: Eugenides’ novel revolves around Cal Stephanides, a Greek-American, as he transitions from female to male in mid-century Detroit.
Fun Facts: Several therapists and physicians who treat intersex patients praised Eugenides for his compassionate portrayal of Cal.
olive kitteridge by elizabeth strout
year of award: 2009
first line: “for many years, henry kitteridge was a pharmacist in the next town over, driving every morning on snowy, rainy or summer roads when the wild raspberries shot out their new growth of brambles along the last section of town before it veered off to where the wider road led to the pharmacy.”
Description: Strout’s collection of short stories includes 13 interrelated stories detailing the lives of residents in the small town of Crosby, Maine.
trivia: olive kitteridge was adapted into an award-winning 2014 hbo miniseries starring frances mcdormand as the title character.
one of our own by willa cather
year granted: 1923
first line: “claude wheeler opened his eyes before the sun came up and vigorously shook his younger brother, who was lying on the other half of the same bed.”
Description: Cather’s novel follows Claude Wheeler, a Nebraska boy who can’t shake the feeling that his father’s success has left him without a clear purpose in life. his discomfort takes him to the us. uu. army during the first world war, where he begins to find some meaning, until he faces the German army on the western front.
Trivia: Many of Cather’s male contemporaries used her decision to narrate battlefield scenes as grounds for firing her. “Poor woman,” ernest hemingway wrote to edmund wilson in a letter accusing her of copying scenes from the movie birth of a nation, “she had to get her war experience in somewhere”.
the highway by cormac mccarthy
year of award: 2007
first line: “when she woke up in the woods in the dark and cold of the night, she reached out to touch the child sleeping beside her.”
description: mccarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel imagines a world shattered by radioactive fallout. follows a man and his young son as they travel through the devastated landscape, facing trials and tribulations along the way.
Fun facts: McCarthy told Oprah that he conceived the novel on a trip to El Paso, Texas, with his young son.
alex haley’s roots
Year Awarded: 1977 (No Pulitzer Prize for Fiction was awarded this year. Instead, Haley received a special award for Roots).
first line: “in the early spring of 1750, in the village of juffure, four days upriver from the coast of gambia, west africa, a son was born to omoro and binta kinte .”
Description: Haley’s novel is a multi-generational epic that begins with Kunta Kinte’s life from her teenage years in The Gambia to her capture, enslavement, and sale to a white slave in the United States. Kinte’s great-great-great-great-great-grandson, the reader learns, is Haley.
Trivia: The book caused a firestorm of controversy when it was marketed as a heavily researched “faction” work in 1976, and scholars were quick to point out flaws in Haley’s methodology. But that controversy was soon overshadowed by an accusation of plagiarism by Harold Courlander, who showed that parts of the novel were copied from his book the African.
the shipping news by e. annie proulx
year of award: 1994
first line: “here is an account of a few years in the life of quoyle, born in brooklyn and raised in a mix of dreary upstate towns.”
Description: That unassuming opening line begins Proulx’s continental epic, following Quoyle to Newfoundland, Canada, where he unravels the tight knot of his family’s secrets while writing a newspaper column. from a small town.
Fun facts: A “quoyle” is a way of storing long ropes aboard a ship in a tight coil laid flat.
the stone diaries by carol shields
year of award: 1995
first line: “my mother’s name was mercy stone goodwill”.
Description: The eighth Shields novel is the fictional autobiography of a character named Daisy, who is surrounded by death and loss, including in motherhood and family life. daisy is born at the beginning of the 20th century and dies in the 90s; The intervening decades are chronicled through daisy’s scrupulous diaries, infusing the banality of middle-class life with a profound sensuality.
trivia: the stone diaries is the only book to have won both the pulitzer and the prestigious governor general of canada award.
the supporter of viet thanh nguyen
year of award: 2016
first line: “I am a spy, a sleeper, a ghost, a man with two faces”.
Description: Nguyen’s debut novel follows an anonymous double agent on the run from Vietnam as Communist forces invade Saigon and infiltrate the Vietnamese community in Los Angeles. the spy-narrator, the son of a white French priest and a Vietnamese mother, struggles to remain dedicated to his divided causes, ultimately leading him into an ever-widening web of murder and deception.
trivia: the sympathizer was published on the 40th anniversary of the fall of saigon, the battle in which north vietnam forces defeated the government of south vietnam backed by the united states.
the underground railway by colson whitehead
year of award: 2017
first line: “the first time caesar approached cora to run north, she said no.”
Description: Whitehead’s sixth novel follows Cora, an enslaved woman who decides to travel north via the Underground Railroad. But there’s a twist: the Underground Railroad is a real railroad.
Trivia: The book was the first novel to win both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award since Annie Proulx’s The Shipping News in 1993.
the yearling by marjorie kinnan rawlings
year granted: 1939
first line: “a plume of smoke rose thin and straight from the cockpit chimney.”
Description: A coming-of-age story set in central Florida in the late 19th century, Rawlings’ novel follows Jody Baxter as she grows up on her parents’ dilapidated farm.
Fun facts: The book was a bestseller in the United States and has been translated into almost 30 foreign languages.
lucas iberico lozada, assistant book editor at paste, is a freelance writer based in rio de janeiro, brazil. you can follow him on twitter.
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