Source : Times of India
Pulitzer Administrator Dana Canedy announced the Pulitzer Prize 2019 winners on April 15 at the Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, New York City. The prestigious award is given in 21 categories in journalism, and the arts every year. Each Pulitzer Prize winner receives $15,000 (INR 1042927.50) along with the honour and the lifelong nomer of being a “Pulitzer Prize winner”.
The various categories in arts (Letters, Drama and Music) include– Fiction, Non-fiction, Drama, History, Autobiography or Biography, Poetry, Music. Usually, one winner and two finalists are chosen in each category. Winning this prestigious award is all the more special as no shortlist or nominees are announced beforehand. Not to forget, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is one of the biggest awards in literature. Some of the previous winners of the Pulitzer Prize include authors like Toni Morrison, Jeffrey Eugenides, Jennifer Egan, and Colson Whitehead. In 2018, author Andrew Sean Greer won the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction for his novel ‘Less’.
This year, Richard Powers won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2019 for his epic nature novel The Overstory. The popular book was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2018 and the PEN/Faulkner Award, which is yet to be announced.
Meanwhile, in the journalism categories, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal were awarded Pulitzer Prizes for their separate investigations of President Donald Trump and his family, according to AFP.
A report by AFP reads, ‘The Times won the prestigious journalism award for a probe of the Trump family’s finances that “debunked his claims of self-made wealth and revealed a business empire riddled with tax dodges,” the Pulitzer Prize Board announced during a ceremony at New York’s Columbia University. The Journal won for its coverage of Trump’s secret hush money payments to two women during his 2016 presidential campaign who claimed to have had affairs with him. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel won a Pulitzer for its coverage of failings by school and law enforcement officials before and after the February 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette was honoured for its coverage of the October 2018 shooting at a synagogue in the city that left 11 people dead. The Associated Press won a Pulitzer for international reporting for its coverage of the war on drugs in the Philippines. Reuters was honoured for international reporting for its coverage of atrocities committed against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.’
Also, this year American singer-songwriter Aretha Franklin was posthumously given the Pulitzer Prize’s Special Citation, “for her indelible contribution to American music and culture for more than five decades,” the Pulitzer Prize board said. A Special Citation was also awarded to ‘the Capital Gazette newspaper of Annapolis, Maryland, which lost five employees in a June 2018 shooting,’ reports AFP.
Here are all the winners who won the Pulitzer Prize 2019 in various categories:
JOURNALISM
Public service: Staff of the South Florida Sun Sentinel
Breaking news reporting: Staff of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Investigative reporting: Matt Hamilton, Harriet Ryan and Paul Pringle of the Los Angeles Times
Explanatory reporting: David Barstow, Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner of the New York Times
Local reporting: Staff of the Advocate
National reporting: Staff of the Wall Street Journal
International reporting: Maggie Michael, Maad al-Zikry and Nariman El-Mofty of the Associated Press, and the staff of Reuters
Feature writing: Hannah Dreier of ProPublica
Commentary: Tony Messenger of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Criticism: Carlos Lozada of the Washington Post
Editorial writing: Brent Staples of the New York Times
Editorial cartooning: Darrin Bell, a freelancer cartoonist
Breaking news photography: Photography staff of Reuters
Feature photography: Lorenzo Tugnoli of The Washington Post
Special citation: Staff of the Capital Gazette
Books, Drama and Music
Fiction: The Overstory by Richard Powers
Nonfiction: Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America by Eliza Griswold
Drama: Fairview by Jackie Sibblies Drury
History: Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom by David W. Blight
Autobiography or Biography: The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke by Jeffrey C. Stewart
Poetry: Be With by Forrest Gander
Music: prism by Ellen Reid
Special citation: Aretha Franklin
