Percival Everett, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and Susie Ibarra among Pulitzer winners in the arts
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The Pulitzer Prizes, which honour excellence in journalism, literary achievements and musical composition, have named this year's winners.
Percival Everett's novel "James,' the American author's radical reimagining of 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' from the perspective of the enslaved title character, has won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
Everett's Pulitzer has accelerated the 68-year-old author's remarkable rise after decades of being little known to the general public.
Since 2021, he has won the PEN/Jean Stein Award for 'Dr. No,' was a Pulitzer finalist for 'Telephone' and on the Booker shortlist for 'The Trees.'
Before Monday, 'James' had
already won the National Book Award
, the Kirkus Prize and the Carnegie Medal for fiction.
His
racial and publishing satire 'Erasure,'
released in 2001, was adapted into the Oscar-nominated 2023 film
American Fiction
.
The Pulitzer citation called 'James' an 'accomplished reconsideration' that illustrates 'the absurdity of racial supremacy and provide a new take on the search for family and freedom.'
Everett said in a statement that he was 'shocked and pleased, but mostly shocked. This is a wonderful honour.'
Scroll down for the full list of this year's winners.
Percival Everett at the 75th National Book Awards ceremony - 2024
AP Photo
'Purpose,' playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' drawing-room drama about an accomplished Black family destroying itself from within, won for drama.
'Purpose' was praised in its citation as 'a skillful blend of drama and comedy that probes how different generations define heritage.'
Jacobs-Jenkins had been twice nominated for a drama Pulitzer, for 'Everybody' in 2018 and 'Gloria' in 2016. He won the Tony Award for best play revival last year for 'Appropriate,' a work centered on a family reunion in Arkansas where everyone has competing motivations and grievances.
Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins at the Time100 Gala 2025
AP Photo
Pulitzer officials also announced that Jason Roberts won the biography award for 'Every Living Thing: The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life' and Benjamin Nathans' "To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement" had been cited for general nonfiction.
Two books were announced as history winners, both of them, like 'James' and 'Purpose,' explorations of race in US history and culture: Edda L. Fields-Black's 'Combee: Harriet Tubman, The Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War' and Kathleen DuVal's "Native Nations: A Millennium in North America."
Marie Howe's 'New and Selected Poems' won for poetry, and composer Susie Ibarra's 'Sky Islands', an eight-piece ensemble inspired by the rainforest habitats of Luzon, Philippines, was awarded the Pulitzer for music.
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Elsewhere, the New York Times won four Pulitzer Prizes and the New Yorker three for journalism in 2024 that touched on topics like the fentanyl crisis, the US military and
last summer's assassination attempt on President Donald Trump
.
The Pulitzers' prestigious public service medal went to ProPublica for the second year in a row. Kavitha Surana, Lizzie Presser, Cassandra Jaramillo and Stacy Kranitz were honored for reporting on pregnant women who died after doctors delayed urgent care in US states with strict abortion laws.
The Washington Post won for 'urgent and illuminating' breaking news coverage of the Trump assassination attempt. The Pulitzers honored Ann Telnaes, who quit the Post in January after the news outlet refused to run her editorial cartoon lampooning tech chiefs —
including Post owner Jeff Bezos
— cozying up to Trump. The Pulitzers praised her 'fearlessness.'
The Wall Street Journal won a Pulitzer for its reporting on
Elon Musk
, 'including his turn to conservative politics, his use of legal and illegal drugs and his private conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin,' the Pulitzer board said.
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Here is the full list of this year's Pultizer Prize winners:
Journalism
Public Service
ProPublica, for urgent reporting by Kavitha Surana, Lizzie Presser, Cassandra Jaramillo and Stacy Kranitz
"About pregnant women who died after doctors delayed urgently needed care for fear of violating vague 'life of the mother' exceptions in states with strict abortion laws."
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Breaking News Reporting
Staff of The Washington Post
"For urgent and illuminating coverage of the July 13 attempt to assassinate then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, including detailed story-telling and sharp analysis that coupled traditional police reporting with audio and visual forensics."
Investigative Reporting
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Staff of Reuters
"For a boldly reported exposé of lax regulation in the U.S. and abroad that makes fentanyl, one of the world's deadliest drugs, inexpensive and widely available to users in the United States."
Explanatory Reporting
Azam Ahmed, Matthieu Aikins, contributing writer, and Christina Goldbaum of The New York Times
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"For an authoritative examination of how the United States sowed the seeds of its own failure in Afghanistan, primarily by supporting murderous militia that drove civilians to the Taliban."
Local Reporting
Alissa Zhu, Nick Thieme and Jessica Gallagher of The Baltimore Banner and The New York Times
"For a compassionate investigative series that captured the breathtaking dimensions of Baltimore's fentanyl crisis and its disproportionate impact on older Black men, creating a sophisticated statistical model that The Banner shared with other newsrooms."
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National Reporting
Staff of The Wall Street Journal
"For chronicling political and personal shifts of the richest person in the world, Elon Musk, including his turn to conservative politics, his use of legal and illegal drugs and his private conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin."
International Reporting
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Declan Walsh and the Staff of The New York Times
"For their revelatory investigation of the conflict in Sudan, including reporting on foreign influence and the lucrative gold trade fueling it, and chilling forensic accounts of the Sudanese forces responsible for atrocities and famine."
Feature Writing
Mark Warren, contributor, Esquire
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"For a sensitive portrait of a Baptist pastor and small town mayor who died by suicide after his secret digital life was exposed by a right-wing news site."
Commentary
Mosab Abu Toha, contributor, The New Yorker
"For essays on the physical and emotional carnage in Gaza that combine deep reporting with the intimacy of memoir to convey the Palestinian experience of more than a year and a half of war with Israel."
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Criticism
Alexandra Lange, contributing writer, Bloomberg CityLab
"For graceful and genre-expanding writing about public spaces for families, deftly using interviews, observations and analysis to consider the architectural components that allow children and communities to thrive."
Editorial Writing
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Raj Mankad, Sharon Steinmann, Lisa Falkenberg and Leah Binkovitz of the Houston Chronicle
"For a powerful series on dangerous train crossings that kept a rigorous focus on the people and communities at risk as the newspaper demanded urgent action."
Illustrated Reporting and Commentary
Ann Telnaes of The Washington Post
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"For delivering piercing commentary on powerful people and institutions with deftness, creativity – and a fearlessness that led to her departure from the news organization after 17 years."
Breaking News Photography
Doug Mills of The New York Times
"For a sequence of photos of the attempted assassination of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, including one image that captures a bullet whizzing through the air as he speaks."
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Feature Photography
Moises Saman, contributor, The New Yorker
"For his haunting black and white images of Sednaya prison in Syria that capture the traumatic legacy of Assad's torture chambers, forcing viewers to confront the raw horrors faced by prisoners and contemplate the scars on society."
Audio Reporting
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Staff of The New Yorker
"For their 'In the Dark' podcast, a combination of compelling storytelling and relentless reporting in the face of obstacles from the U.S. military, a four-year investigation into one of the most high-profile crimes of the Iraq War–the murder of 25 unarmed Iraqi civilians in Haditha."
Literature and Music
Fiction
James, by Percival Everett
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"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."
Drama
Purpose, by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
"A play about the complex dynamics and legacy of an upper middle class African-American family whose patriarch was a key figure in the Civil Rights Movement, a skillful blend of drama and comedy that probes how different generations define heritage."
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History
Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War, by Edda 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
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"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."
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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
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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
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"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."
Music
Sky Islands, by Susie Ibarra
"Premiered on July 18, 2024 at the Asia Society, New York, N.Y., a work about ecosystems and biodiversity, that challenges the notion of the compositional voice by interweaving the profound musicianship and improvisational skills of a soloist as a creative tool."
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Special Award and Citation
Chuck Stone
"A special citation is awarded to the late Chuck Stone for his groundbreaking work as a journalist covering the Civil Rights Movement, his pioneering role as the first Black columnist at the Philadelphia Daily News–later syndicated to nearly 100 publications–and for co-founding the National Association of Black Journalists 50 years ago."
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