Pulitzer Prize Announcement Winners 2021

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prize that are awarded annually for Letters, Drama, and Music. It recognizes distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life, published during the preceding calendar year. As the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel, it was one of the original Pulitzers; the program was  Inaugurated in 1917 with seven prizes, four of which were awarded that year. No Novel prize was awarded in 1917 the first was awarded in 1918.

Finalists have been announced since 1980, usually a total of three.

Pulitzer Prize announcement and date 2021

The Pulitzer Awards in the fields of journalism and the arts were announced on Friday. In the last one year, when people were forced to stay indoors due to the global pandemic Corona virus, while many people took to the streets against racial atrocities, during that time the best work done in these fields will be honored.

Pulitzer Prize in Journalism

The first was given in 1917 and is considered the most prestigious honor in the field in America. Years like 2020 must have been few in the field of journalism when whatever happened was affected by Kovid-19. The award ceremony was earlier scheduled to be held on April 19 but was postponed to June.

This year Darnella Frasier was given special citation. He recorded the incident in Minnesota during which black-American George Floyd lost his life. After this, there were huge demonstrations against racial violence not only in America but around the world.

Pulitzer Prize Winners 2021 List winners-

Exoplanetary Reporting – Andrew Chang, Lawrence Hurley, Andrea Januta, Jaime Dowell, Jackie Botts, Reuters

Breaking News Photographer - Associated Press Photography Staff

Biography - Le Penn and Tamara Penn, The Dead Are Arising

Feature photography - Emilio Morenati, Associated Press

Music - Tania Leone, Stride

Special Citation - Daniella Frazier

Fiction - Louis Erdick, The Night Watchman

Non-fiction – David Zuccino, Wilmington's Lie

Poetry - Natalie Dies, Postcolonial Love Poem

History – Marcia Chatelain, Franchisee

Drama - Bowl Hall, The Hot Wing King

Public Service - The New York Times

Audio Reporting – Lisa Hagen, Chris Hegzel, Graham Smith, Robert Little

Editorial Writing – Robert Greene

Criticism - Wesley Morris, The New York Times

Commentary - Michael Paul Williams, Richmond Times Dispatch

Feature Writing – Michael S Jackson, Runners World

Feature Writing - Naja Rost, California Sunday Magazine

International Reporting – Megha Rajagopalan, Alison Killing, Christo Bushek

National Reporting - The Marshall Project, ALdotcom, IndyStar, Invisible Institute

Local Reporting – Kathleen McGrory, Neil Bedi, Tampa Bay Times

Exoplanetary Reporting – Ed Young, The Atlantic

Investigative Reporting – Matt Rochelle, Vernal Coleman, Laura Crimaldi, Evan Allen, Brendan McCarthy, The Boston Globe

Breaking News Reporting - Star Tribune

Reaction to the decision of the fiction award

The three-member panel nominated three books, which were then forwarded to the 20-member Pulitzer Prize Board. Because no book received the majority of votes from board members, no prize was awarded. It was the first time since 1977, and the eleventh time in Pulitzer history, that there was no winner in the fiction category, and it was a surprise to the world.

Maureen Corrigan, a jury member, responded to the board's decision, saying, "We have nominated three novels that we consider to be more than Pulitzer-worthy – David Foster Wallace's The Pale King, Karen Russell's Swamplandia! and Denise Johnson's Train Dreams. That board is unspeakable to refuse to award any of these brilliant novels."

Jury member Michael Cunningham wrote a lengthy two-part essay in The New Yorker entitled "What Really Happened This Year", which described the process of selecting shortlist titles and the reaction to no prizes being chosen.

Book critic Lev Grossman for Time wrote that, "I support the Pulitzer Board's decision not to award fiction this year." He argued that "great" novels are relatively rare, and there are years in which a "masterpiece" will not be published. He cautioned against the plethora of book awards, writing, "It bothers me to see great work neglected, but to see mediocre books being praised more than it bothers me."

In response, The New York Times invited eight literary experts to choose their winners for the prize. The experts and their picks were Sam Anderson and Maisie Halford: The Pale King by David Foster Wallace; Maude Newton: Pimm by Matt Johnson; Gregory Cowles: The Year We Left Home by Gene Thompson; Garth Risk Hallberg: The Angel Esmeralda by Don DeLillo; Laila Lalami: State of Wonder by Ann Patchett; Alexander Chi: Silver Sparrow by Tyree Jones, and John Williams: Open City by Tezu Cole.