On Reading the 94 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction Winners

Author Ernest Poole

The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction was awarded for the first time just over 100 years ago in 1918.  That first prize went to Ernest Poole for His Family, a novel that deals with the lives of a widower and his three daughters in the 1910s.  The next year the award was given to the more familiar Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington, but then in what would set an irritating precedent, no award was presented in 1920 at all.  Subsequently, the award was skipped in 1941, 1946, 1964, 1971, 1974, 1977, and 2012.  

In my opinion, the Pulitzer committee letting this happen is an embarrassment to both the committee (whose "process" has failed) and to the best authors of the day (whose work is thus deemed unworthy of such a prestigious award).  In 2012 when three finalists were named before it was announced that no award was to be presented, it was particularly embarrassing for all concerned.  And of course, this is not even to mention the booksellers around the world who count on literary prizes to boost their bookstore sales every year.  Booksellers count on prizes like the Pulitzer in the way that movie theaters count on the Academy Award for Best Picture.

1956 Winner Andersonville

All this to say that I started regularly reading the Pulitzers in 1980 and, with the exception of a few bad stretches, have done fairly well with keeping up with them.  For instance, I've read everything from the 1980 winner (Mailer's Executioner's Song) through the 2008 winner (The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz) with the exception of the winners for 1983, 1993, 2000, and 2001 - then I skip three years, four if you count the infamous no-award year of 2012.  

My point is that even though I've done fairly well since the eighties, I have still read less than half of the winners, so I want to formalize something I've been doing in a leisurely, informal way anyhow.  My new "Read the Pulitzers" project will by definition be both long term and continuing as (hopefully) the Pulitzer committee sees fit to gift its prize every year into the future.  There have been 102 opportunities for the committee to award a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and they have done so 94 times. Of those, I have read forty-one.

So I'm off...but before I go, here's a link to the list of all 94 winners through 2019 and my progress on them.


Quick Update:  Tomorrow I will be finishing up the 2018 winner, Less by Andrew Sean Greer, and will be reviewing it in the next couple of days.