Congratulations to the book winners and finalists of the 2023 Pulitzer Prizes:
Fiction
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (Harper): "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 (Riverhead Books): "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."
Fiction finalist
The Immortal King Rao by Vauhini Vara (W.W. Norton)
History
Freedom's Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power by Jefferson Cowie (Basic Books): "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."
History finalists
Seeing Red: Indigenous Land, American Expansion, and the Political Economy of Plunder in North America by Michael John Witgen (Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture/University of North Carolina Press)
Watergate: A New History by Garrett M. Graff (Avid Reader Press/S&S)
Biography
G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage (Viking): "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."
Biography finalists
His Name Is George Floyd: One Man's Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice by Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa (Viking)
Mr. B: George Balanchine's 20th Century by Jennifer Homans (Random House)
Memoir or autobiography
Stay True by Hua Hsu (Doubleday): "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."
Memoir or autobiography finalists
Easy Beauty: A Memoir by Chloé Cooper Jones (Avid Reader Press/S&S)
The Man Who Could Move Clouds: A Memoir by Ingrid Rojas Contreras (Doubleday)
Poetry
Then the War: And Selected Poems, 2007-2020 by Carl Phillips (Farrar, Straus and Giroux): "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."
Poetry finalists
Blood Snow by dg nanouk okpik (Wave Books)
Still Life by the late Jay Hopler (McSweeney's)
General nonfiction
His Name Is George Floyd: One Man's Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice by Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa (Viking): "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." (Moved by the board from the Biography category.)
General nonfiction finalists
Kingdom of Characters: The Language Revolution That Made China Modern by Jing Tsu (Riverhead Books)
Sounds Wild and Broken: Sonic Marvels, Evolution's Creativity, and the Crisis of Sensory Extinction by David George Haskell (Viking)
Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of Our Nation by Linda Villarosa (Doubleday)
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."
Drama finalists
On Sugarland by Aleshea Harris
The Far Country by Lloyd Suh