Skip to main content
Board lander photo
2016 Pulitzer Prize Board
Board lander photo caption

front row left to right: J. Diaz, R. Blau, K. Willey, P. Gigot, M. Pride, J. Dehli, G. Collins; back row left to right: N. Brown, K. Boo, J. Daniszewski, R. Beck, E. Robinson, S. Engelberg, A. Marqués, T. Shelby, S. Hahn, S. Coll (absent: L. Bollinger)

Board Lander Sub Title
Paul Gigot, chair; Mike Pride, administrator

Carla Power

Publication
If the Oceans Were Ink: An Unlikely Friendship and a Journey to the Heart of the Quran
Citation
A perceptive account of a year spent reading the Quran, displaying grace, subtlety and humane intellect as antidotes to rampant Islamophobia.
Publisher
Henry Holt
Tags: 2016
Categories: General Nonfiction

Ta-Nehisi Coates

Publication
Between the World and Me
Citation
A powerful book that passionately and bleakly propounds the hazards faced by black men coming of age in America.
Publisher
Spiegel & Grau
Tags: 2016
Categories: General Nonfiction

Joby Warrick

Teaser thumbnail
Joby Warrick
Citation
A deeply reported book of remarkable clarity showing how the flawed rationale for the Iraq War led to the explosive growth of the Islamic State.
Tags: 2016
Categories: General Nonfiction
Publisher
Doubleday
Publication
Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS

Carter Pann

Publication
The Mechanics: Six from the Shop Floor
Citation
Recording released on September 8, 2015 by Capitol Quartet, a suite that imagines its four saxophonists as mechanics engaged in a rhythmic interplay of precision and messiness that is by turns bubbly, pulsing, dreamy and nostalgic (Blue Griffin).
Publisher
Blue Griffin
Tags: 2016
Categories: Music

Timo Andres

Publication
The Blind Banister
Citation
A three-movement piece inspired by Beethoven that takes listeners on a beautiful quest in which they rise and fall with the music's ascending and descending scales.
Publisher
Andres & Sons Bakery
Tags: 2016
Categories: Music

Henry Threadgill

Teaser thumbnail
Henry Threadgill.
Citation
Recording released on May 26, 2015 by Zooid, a highly original work in which notated music and improvisation mesh in a sonic tapestry that seems the very expression of modern American life (Pi Recordings).
Tags: 2016
Categories: Music
Publisher
Pi Recordings
Publication
In for a Penny, In for a Pound

Margaret Verble

Publication
Maud's Line
Citation
A novel whose humble prose seems well-suited to the remote American milieu it so engagingly evokes: the Indian allotments of 1920s Oklahoma.
Publisher
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Tags: 2016
Categories: Fiction

Kelly Link

Publication
Get in Trouble: Stories
Citation
A collection of short stories in which a writer with a fertile and often fabulist imagination explores inner lies and odd corners of reality.
Publisher
Random House
Tags: 2016
Categories: Fiction

Elizabeth Willis

Publication
Alive: New and Selected Poems
Citation
A book worthy of its title in which the poet calls readers to look deep within themselves and regard anew the struggle to live.
Publisher
NYRB
Tags: 2016
Categories: Poetry

Diane Seuss

Publication
Four-Legged Girl
Citation
A richly improvisational poetry collection that leads readers through a gallery of incisive and beguiling portraits and landscapes.
Publisher
Graywolf Press
Tags: 2016
Categories: Poetry
Subscribe to 2016