What To Read

We got a surprise this week when the Pulitzer Prizes were announced: two winners for fiction. This is the first time in history that two books have been honored with the Fiction Prize in the same year. Frankly, we sympathize. We wouldn't be able to choose either, considering what a great year it's been for literature.

Winners in other categories included Hua Hsu's Stay True for memoir, Carl Phillips' Then the War: And Selected Poems, 2007-2020 for poetry, and Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa's His Name Is George Floyd for non-fiction. Vauhini Vara's The Immortal King Rao was the sole runner-up in the fiction category. 

How many Pulitzer fiction winners have you read? We've compiled the full list below. Save some of these on your TBR — you can do that by hitting the bookmark button under the book cover — and you’ll never be without a solid read to check out next!

The 2023 Winners

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

A masterful recasting of David Copperfield, narrated by an Appalachian boy whose wise, unwavering voice relates his encounters with poverty, addiction, institutional failures and moral collapse–and his efforts to conquer them.

Trust by Hernan Diaz

A riveting novel set in a bygone America that explores family, wealth and ambition through linked narratives rendered in different literary styles, a complex examination of love and power in a country where capitalism is king.

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

2012: No prize awarded

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 Díaz

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 Kavalier & 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

1977: No prize awarded

1976: Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow

1975: The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara

1974: No prize awarded

1973: The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty

1972: Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner

1971: No prize awarded

1970: Collected Stories by Jean Stafford

1969: House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday

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

1964: No prize awarded

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 Jaimie McPheeters by Robert Lewis Taylor

1958: A Death in the Family by James Agee

1957: No prize awarded

1956: Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor

1955: A Fable by William Faulkner

1954: No prize awarded

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 Cozzens

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

1947: All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren

1946: No prize awarded

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

1941: No prize awarded

1940: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

1939: The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

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 La Farge

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

1920: No prize awarded

1919: The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington

1918: His Family by Ernest Poole