Slave novel captures Pulitzer
NEW YORK — Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad, his celebrated novel about an escaped slave that combined liberating imagination and brutal reality, has won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
Monday’s announcement confirmed the book as the literary event of 2016 in the U.S. — an Oprah Winfrey book club pick and critical favourite that last fall received the National Book Award, the first time in more than 20 years that the same work won the Pulitzer and National Book Award for fiction.
This is the 101st year for the contest, established by newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer. They are awarded for the best in arts and American journalism.
Lynn Nottage’s Sweat, which won for drama, explored how the shutdown of a Pennsylvania factory leads to the breakdown of friendship and family, and a devastating cycle of violence, prejudice, poverty and drugs.
The history winner, Heather Ann Thompson’s Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy, examined the events that unfolded starting Sept. 9, 1971, when nearly 1,300 prisoners took over the Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York to protest years of mistreatment.
Olio by Tyehimba Jess won the prize for poetry.
The Pulitzer board gave the music award to Du Yun’s Angel’s Bone and called it a “bold” work that “integrates vocal and instrumental elements and a wide range of styles into a harrowing allegory for human trafficking in the modern world.”
In the Pulitzer journalism category, David A. Fahrenthold of the Washington Post won for national reporting for his U.S. election stories that cast doubt on Donald Trump’s assertions of generosity toward charities.
Fahrenthold’s submission also included his story about Trump’s raunchy behind-the-scenes comments during a 2005 taping of Access Hollywood in 2005. The footage rocked the White House race and prompted a rare apology from the then-candidate.
The New York Times won three prizes, for international reporting, breaking news photography and feature writing.
The Charleston Gazette-Mail won for investigative reporting for exposing the unchecked flow of opioids into depressed West Virginia counties. The East Bay Times in Oakland, California, won the Pulitzer for breaking news reporting for coverage of a warehouse fire that killed 36 people.