Tuesday, April 17, 2012

And the winner of this year's Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is... nobody?

Columbia University announced this year’s round of Pulitzer Prize winners yesterday, and a number of outstanding books brought home top honors this year.

While it’s not unheard of, one unusual twist this year was that there was no Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner. Finalists for the award this year included “Train Dreams” by Denis Johnson, “Swamplandia!” by Karen Russell and “The Pale King” by David Foster Wallace.

The last time that no winner in the fiction category was named was 1977. Other years that this occurred in included 1974, 1971, 1964, 1957, 1954, 1946, 1941, 1920 and 1917.

Other winners this year included “Malcolm X: A Life ofReinvention” by the late Manning Marable, which won the Pulitzer for History.

Other nominees in the history category were "Empires, Nations & Families: A History of the North American West, 1800-1860,” by Anne F. Hyde, "The Eleventh Day: The Full Story of 9/11 and Osama Bin Laden," by Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan and "Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America," by Richard White.

“George F. Kennan: An American Life” by John Lewis Gaddis won the Pulitzer for Biography.

Other nominees in the biography category included "Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution," by Mary Gabriel and "Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention," by the late Manning Marable.

“The Swerve: How the World Became Modern” by Stephen Greenblatt won for General Nonfiction.

Other nominees in the general nonfiction category were “One Hundred Names For Love: A Stroke, a Marriage, and the Language of Healing,” by Diane Ackerman and “Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men,” by Mara Hvistendahl.

Even though there was no winner in the fiction category this year, I leave you with a complete list of the all-time winners in that category. If you’re looking for a good book, you won’t go wrong with any of these. Without further ado, here’s the list:

1917 – No Award.
1918--His Family by Ernest Poole
1919--The Magnificant Ambersons by Booth Tarkington
1920--No Award

1921--The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
1922--Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington
1923--One of Ours by Willa Cather
1924--The Able McLaughlins by Margaret Wilson
1925--So Big by Edna Ferber

1926--Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis
1927--Early Autumn: A Story of a Lady by Louis Bromfield
1928--The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
1929--Scarlet Sister Mary by Julia Peterkin
1930--Laughing Boy by Oliver LaFarge

1931--Years of Grace by Margaret Ayer Barnes
1932--The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
1933--The Store by T.S. Stribling
1934--Lamb in His Bosom by Caroline
1935--Now in November by Josephine Winslow Johnson

1936--Honey in the Horn by Horld Davis
1937--Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
1938--The Late George Apley by John Phillips Marquand
1939--The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
1940--The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

1941--No Award
1942--In This Our Life by Ellen Glasgow
1943--Dragon's Teeth by Upton Sinclair
1944--Journey in the Dark by Martin Flavin
1945--A Bell for Adano by John Hersey

1946--No Award
1947--All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
1948--Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener
1949--Guard of Honor by James Gould Cozzens
1950--The Way West by A.B. Guthrie, Jr.

1951--The Town by Conrad Richter
1952--The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
1953--The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
1954--No Award
1955--A Fable by William Faulkner

1956--Andersonville by Mackinlay Kantor
1957--No Award
1958--A Death in the Family by James Agee
1959--The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters by Robert Lewis Taylor
1960--Advise and Consent by Allen Drury

1961--To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
1962--The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O'Connor
1963--The Reivers by William Faulkner
1964--No Award
1965--The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau

1966--Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter by Katherine Anne Porter
1967--The Fixer by Bernard Malamud
1968--The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron
1969--House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday
1970--Collected Stories by Jean Stafford

1971--No Award
1972--Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
1973--The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty
1974--No Award
1975--The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara

1976--Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow
1977--No Award
1978--Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson
1979--The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever
1980--The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer

1981--A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
1982--Rabbit is Rich by John Updike
1983--The Color Purple by Alice Walker
1984--Ironweed by William Kennedy
1985--Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie

1986--Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
1987--A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor
1988--Beloved by Toni Morrison
1989--Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler
1990--The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos

1991--Rabbit at Rest by John Updike
1992--A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
1993--A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler
1994--The Shipping News by Annie E. Proulx
1995--The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields

1996--Independence Day by Richard Ford
1997--Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser
1998--American Pastoral by Philip Roth
1999--The Hours by Michael Cunningham
2000--Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

2001--The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
2002--Empire Falls by Richard Russo
2003--Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
2004--The Known World by Edward P. jones
2005--Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

2006--March by Gerladine Brooks
2007—The Road by Cormac McCarthy
2008-- The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
2009--Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
2010 – The Tinkers by Paul Harding
2011 – A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
2012 – No Award.

In the end, how many of the books mentioned above have you had a chance to read? What did you think about them? Which did you like or dislike? Which would you recommend? Let us know in the comments section below.

Pulizters were awarded in a number of other categories yesterday, including drama, poetry and music as well as a slate of journalism awards. For more information about the winners and finalists in these categories, visit www.pulitzer.org.

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