Written by Lauren
Don’t you just love awards season? The 2023 winners of the prestigious Pulitzer Prizes for achievements in Letters, Drama & Music were announced earlier this week. Read on to see what they are and why judges chose them.
Fiction
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.” And, one of ABC’s Sophie’s choices.
General NonFiction
His Name Is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice by Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa
“An intimate, riveting portrait of an ordinary man whose fatal encounter with police officers in 2020 sparked an international movement for social change, but whose humanity and complicated personal story were unknown.”
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History
Freedom’s Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power by Jefferson Cowie
“A resonant account of an Alabama county in the 19th and 20th centuries shaped by settler colonialism and slavery, a portrait that illustrates the evolution of white supremacy by drawing powerful connections between anti-government and racist ideologies.”
Biography
G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage
“A deeply researched and nuanced look at one of the most polarizing figures in U.S. history that depicts the longtime FBI director in all his complexity, with monumental achievements and crippling flaws.”
Memoir or Autobiography
Stay True by Hua Hsu
“An elegant and poignant coming of age account that considers intense, youthful friendships but also random violence that can suddenly and permanently alter the presumed logic of our personal narratives.”
Poetry
Then the War: And Selected Poems, 2007-2020 by Carl Phillips
“A masterful collection that chronicles American culture as the country struggles to make sense of its politics, of life in the wake of a pandemic, and of our place in a changing global community.”
Drama
English by Sanaz Toossi
“A quietly powerful play about four Iranian adults preparing for an English language exam in a storefront school near Tehran, where family separations and travel restrictions drive them to learn a new language that may alter their identities and also represent a new life.”
