Colson Whitehead wins the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
Colson Whitehead has been awarded the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel, The Underground Railroad.
The Underground Railroad has been described as a literary blockbuster, earning widespread commercial and critical success. For this novel, Whitehead asks the question: What if the Underground Railroad was a literal railroad? The story centers on a young woman named Cora, who escapes her life as a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia and flees via this fantastical subterranean network of train cars. It’s a richly imagined tale, both brutal and surreal.
The Pulitzer judges write that Whitehead was awarded the Prize – ‘For a smart melding of realism and allegory that combines the violence of slavery and the drama of escape in a myth that speaks to contemporary America.’
The Underground Railroad has already collected multiple accolades, including last year’s National Book Award. Moonlight director Barry Jenkins is also currently adapting the book for a mini-series.
The two finalists in the fiction category were Imagine Me Gone by Adam Haslett and The Sport of Kings by C.E. Morgan.
Other winning books from this year’s Pulitzer Prizes include…
- Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond (General Nonfiction)
- The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between by Hisham Matar (Biography or Autobiography)
- Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy by Heather Ann Thompson (History)
- Olio by Tyehimba Jess (Poetry)
The Prize for Criticism has been awarded to the endlessly inventive and incisive Hilton Als. You can read a fascinating reflection of his work here.
Congratulations to all the winners and finalists across all categories, and especially for journalism. As the New York Times (which won three Pulitzer awards last night) writes, this is ‘a time of financial challenges for the industry and unabashed antagonism toward the news media from a new administration’. We are immensely grateful for the work being done by journalists today.
To find the full list of prize winners and finalists please visit the Pulitzer Prize website.
