Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

This is one of the 759 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.

About this list

Pulitzer Prize, 99 Books

All the books that have won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction from 1918 to the present.

Rough head-count of people who shape the result each year

5 subject-matter jurors who screen the entries and forward three titles.

19 Board members who cast the decisive votes.
So, a maximum of 24 people take part in the decision path for the Biography / Autobiography prize each cycle.

Names are not secret, just easy to overlook.

Jury names stay under wraps until winners are announced, then they’re displayed on each category’s web page (and occasionally turn up in press coverage or book-specific Wikipedia entries, as in the 2011 example above).

Board membership is public all year and archived from one cycle to the next.

This list is a yearly book award, and was added to this site over 12 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
9827 His Family Ernest Poole 1917 American English
1230 The Magnificent Ambersons Booth Tarkington 1918 American English
92 The Age of Innocence Edith Wharton 1920 American English
11452 Alice Adams Booth Tarkington 1921 American English
2278 One of Ours Willa Cather 1922 American English
11452 The Able McLaughlins Margaret Wilson 1923 American English
10154 So Big Edna Ferber 1924 American English
1656 Arrowsmith Sinclair Lewis 1925 American English
11452 Early Autumn Louis Bromfield 1926 American English
631 The Bridge of San Luis Rey Thornton Wilder 1927 American English
11452 Scarlet Sister Mary Julia Peterkin 1928 American English
10166 Laughing Boy Oliver La Farge 1929 American English
11452 Years of Grace Margaret Ayer Barnes 1930 American English
281 The Good Earth Pearl S. Buck 1931 American English
11452 The Store Thomas Sigismund Stribling 1932 American English
11452 Lamb in His Bosom Caroline Miller 1933 American English
5510 Now in November Josephine Winslow Johnson 1934 American English
10155 Honey in the Horn Harold L. Davis 1935 American English
58 Gone With the Wind Margaret Mitchell 1936 American English
9055 The Late George Apley John P. Marquand 1937 American English
914 The Yearling Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings 1938 American English
26 The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck 1939 American English
11452 In This Our Life Ellen Glasgow 1941 American English
10168 Dragon's Teeth Upton Sinclair 1942 American English
11452 Journey in the Dark Martin Flavin 1943 American English
10155 A Bell for Adano John Hersey 1944 American English
149 All the King's Men Robert Penn Warren 1946 American English
1376 Tales of the South Pacific James A. Michener 1947 American English
8381 Guard of Honor James Gould Cozzens 1948 American English
10155 The Way West A. B. Guthrie 1949 American English
11452 The Town Conrad Richter 1950 American English
726 The Caine Mutiny Herman Wouk 1951 American English
54 The Old Man and the Sea Ernest Hemingway 1952 American English
7165 A Fable William Faulkner 1954 American English
1114 Andersonville MacKinlay Kantor 1955 American English
466 A Death in the Family James Agee 1957 American English
11452 The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters Robert Lewis Taylor 1958 American English
3058 Advise and Consent Allen Drury 1959 American English
16 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee 1960 American English
11452 The Edge of Sadness Edwin O'Connor 1961 American English
8789 The Reivers William Faulkner 1962 American English
6486 The Keepers of the House Shirley Ann Grau 1964 American English
4706 The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter Katherine Anne Porter 1965 American English
1718 The Fixer Bernard Malamud 1966 American English
1541 The Confessions of Nat Turner William Styron 1967 American English
2867 House Made of Dawn N. Scott Momaday 1968 American English
10170 The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford Jean Stafford 1969 American English
658 Angle of Repose Wallace Stegner 1971 American English
1313 The Optimist's Daughter Eudora Welty 1972 American English
713 The Killer Angels Michael Shaara 1974 American English
666 Humboldt's Gift Saul Bellow 1975 American English
11452 Elbow Room James Alan McPherson 1977 American English
680 The Stories of John Cheever John Cheever 1978 American English
2730 The Executioner's Song Norman Mailer 1979 American English
203 A Confederacy of Dunces John Kennedy Toole 1980 American English
686 Rabbit Is Rich John Updike 1981 American English
157 The Color Purple Alice Walker 1982 American English
2302 Ironweed William Kennedy 1983 American English
3105 Foreign Affairs Alison Lurie 1984 American English
623 Lonesome Dove Larry McMurtry 1985 American English
2346 A Summons to Memphis Peter Taylor 1986 American English
49 Beloved Toni Morrison 1987 American English
2387 Breathing Lessons Anne Tyler 1988 American English
2394 The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love Oscar Hijuelos 1989 American English
784 Rabbit at Rest John Updike 1990 American English
1000 A Thousand Acres Jane Smiley 1991 American English
11452 A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain Robert Olen Butler 1992 American English
488 The Shipping News Annie Proulx 1993 Canadian English
1697 The Stone Diaries Carol Shields 1993 Canadian English
1484 Independence Day Richard Ford 1995 American English
11452 Martin Dressler Steven Millhauser 1996 American English
380 American Pastoral Philip Roth 1997 American English
1610 The Hours Michael Cunningham 1998 American English
1775 Interpreter of Maladies Jhumpa Lahiri 1999 American English
314 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay Michael Chabon 2000 American English
2586 Empire Falls Richard Russo 2001 American English
418 Middlesex Jeffrey Eugenides 2002 American English
574 The Known World Edward P. Jones 2003 American English
475 Gilead Marilynne Robinson 2004 American English
10170 March Geraldine Brooks 2005 American English
290 The Road Cormac McCarthy 2006 American English
396 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Junot Diaz 2007 Dominican English
1354 Olive Kitteridge Elizabeth Strout 2008 American English
8988 Tinkers Paul Harding 2009 American English
421 A Visit From The Goon Squad Jennifer Egan 2010 American English
8385 The Orphan Master's Son Adam Johnson 2012 American English
741 The Goldfinch Donna Tartt 2013 American English
1413 All the Light We Cannot See Anthony Doerr 2014 American English
922 The Sympathizer Viet Thanh Nguyen 2015 American English
770 The Underground Railroad Colson Whitehead 2016 American English
8988 Less Andrew Sean Greer 2017 American English
1110 The Overstory Richard Powers 2018 American English
4589 The Nickel Boys Colson Whitehead 2019 American English
6332 The Night Watchman Louise Erdrich 2020 American English
7678 The Netanyahus Joshua Cohen 2021 American English
3059 Trust Hernan Díaz 2022 Argentinian English
2107 Demon Copperhead Barbara Kingsolver 2022 American English
10170 Night Watch Jayne Anne Phillips 2023 American English
2805 James Percival Everett 2024 American English