On Monday, May 5, 2025, the Pulitzer Prize winners for this year were announced. Since this is a book and writing blog, I want to concentrate on the list of the 2025 Pulitzer Prize Book Winners in their six categories.
But first, a little history.
In the late 19th century, Jospeh Pulitzer was the publisher of two newspapers; the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the New York World. He was among the first to call for professional training of journalists and in fact upon his death left $2 million to Columbia University to set up a school of journalism.
According to The Pulitzer Prizes website: “In writing his 1904 will, which made provision for the establishment of the Pulitzer Prizes as an incentive to excellence, Pulitzer specified solely four awards in journalism, four in books and drama, one for education, and five traveling scholarships.” Categories have been added to and expanded over the years.
The first awarding of Pulitzer Prizes took place in 1917 and have continued to this day.
Here are the 2025 Pulitzer Prize Book Winners:
Fiction
James by Percival Everett
An accomplished reconsideration of ‘Huckleberry Finn’ that gives agency to Jim to illustrate the absurdity of racial supremacy and provide a new take on the search for family and freedom.
History
Two winners this year.
Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War by Edd L. Fields-Black
A richly-textured and revelatory account of a slave rebellion that brought 756 enslaved people to freedom in a single day, weaving military strategy and family history with the transition from bondage to freedom.
Native Nations: A Millennium in North America by Kathleen DuVal
A panoramic portrait of Native American nations and communities over a thousand years, a vivid and accessible account of their endurance, ingenuity and achievement in the face of conflict and dispossession.
Biography
Every Living Thing: The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life by Jason Roberts
A beautifully written double biography of Carl Linnaeus and Georges-Louis de Buffon, 18th century contemporaries who devoted their lives to identifying and describing nature’s secrets, and who continue to influence how we understand the world.
Memoir or Autobiography
Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir by Tessa Hulls
An affecting work of literary art and discovery whose illustrations bring to life three generations of Chinese women — the author, her mother and grandmother, and the experience of trauma handed down with family histories.
Poetry
New and Selected Poems by Marie Howe
A collection drawn from decades of work that mines the day-to-day modern experience for evidence of our shared loneliness, mortality and holiness.
General Nonfiction
To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement by Benjamin Nathans
A prodigiously researched and revealing history of Soviet dissent, how it was repeatedly put down and came to life again, populated by a sprawling cast of courageous people dedicated to fighting for threatened freedoms and hard-earned rights.
I am sad to say that I have not read any of these works, though I have been intending to read James for the past 6 months and hope to get to it soon.
But there you have it, the 2025 Pulitzer Prize Book Winners.
Uli
