Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is awarded to distinguished fiction published during the year by an American author, preferably dealing with American life.

Updated April 16, 2024
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A death in the family
Agee, James
Paper Book
The classic American novel--winner of the 1958 Pulitzer Prize--now re-published for the 100th anniversary of James Agee's birth One of Time's All-Time 100 Best Novels A Penguin Classic Published in 1957, two years after...
March : a novel
Brooks, Geraldine.
Paper Book
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize--a powerful love story set against the backdrop of the Civil War, from the author of The Secret Chord. From Louisa May Alcott's beloved classic Little Women, Geraldine Brooks has animated the character of the absent father, March, and...
The good earth
Buck, Pearl S.
Paper Book
Nobel Laureate Pearl S. Buck's epic Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and Oprah Book Club selection about a vanished China and one family's shifting fortunes. Though more than seventy years have passed since this remarkable novel won the Pulitzer Prize, it has retained its popularity and...
A good scent from a strange mountain : stories
Butler, Robert Olen.
Paper Book
Robert Olen Butler's lyrical and poignant collection of stories about the aftermath of the Vietnam War and its impact on the Vietnamese was acclaimed by critics across the nation and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1993. Now Grove Press is proud to reissue this contemporary classic by one of America...
Early novels and stories
Cather, Willa
Paper Book
'Let your fiction grow out of the land beneath your feet.' Willa Cather's remark describes her own reasons for re-creating in her works the Nebraska frontier of her youth. Set on the vast northern Great Plains, where the earth has only recently come beneath the plow, the stories and novels in this...
The amazing adventures of Kavalier & Clay : a novel
Chabon, Michael.
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE * NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The epic, beloved novel of two boy geniuses dreaming up superheroes in New York's Golden Age of comics, now with special bonus material by the author--soon to be a Showtime limited series  
The Netanyahus : an account of a minor and ultimately even negligible episode in the history of a very famous family
Cohen, Joshua
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE 2022 PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION 2021 NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD WINNER A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2021 A WALL STREET JOURNAL BEST BOOK OF 2021 A KIRKUS BEST FICTION BOOK OF 2021 ...
Trust
Díaz, Hernán
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES TOP TEN BOOKS OF 2022 ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2022 LONGLISTED FOR THE 2022 BOOKER PRIZE "Buzzy and enthralling ...A...
All the light we cannot see : a novel
Doerr, Anthony
Paper Book
*NOW A NETFLIX LIMITED SERIES--from producer and director Shawn Levy (Stranger Things) starring Mark Ruffalo, Hugh Laurie, and newcomer Aria Mia Loberti* Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist, the beloved instant New York Times bestseller...
The brief wondrous life of Oscar Wao
Díaz, Junot
Paper Book
Winner of: The Pulitzer Prize The National Book Critics Circle Award The Anisfield-Wolf Book Award The Jon Sargent, Sr. First Novel Prize A Time Magazine #1 Fiction Book of the Year One of the best books of 2007 according to: The New...
A visit from the Goon Squad
Egan, Jennifer.
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE WINNER * With music pulsing on every page, this startling, exhilarating novel of self-destruction and redemption "features characters about whom you come to care deeply as you watch them doing things they shouldn't, acting...
The night watchman : a novel
Erdrich, Louise
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE 2021 PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER WASHINGTON POST, NPR, CBS SUNDAY MORNING, KIRKUS, CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY, AND GOOD HOUSEKEEPING BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR Based on the extraordinary life of National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich's...
Middlesex
Eugenides, Jeffrey
Paper Book
I was born twice- first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974 My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driver's license records...
A fable
Faulkner, William
Paper Book
This novel won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award in 1955. An allegorical story of World War I, set in the trenches in France and dealing ostensibly with a mutiny in a French regiment, it was originally considered a sharp departure for Faulkner. Recently it has come to be...
Independence Day
Ford, Richard
Paper Book
Frank Bascombe is no longer a sportswriter, yet he's still living in Haddam, New Jersey, where he now sells real estate. He's still divorced, though his ex-wife, to his dismay, has remarried and moved along with their children to Connecticut. But Frank is happy enough in his work and pursuing...
The keepers of the house : a novel
Grau, Shirley Ann.
Paper Book
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1965, The Keepers of the House is Shirley Ann Grau’s masterwork, a many-layered indictment of racism and rage that is as terrifying as it is wise. Entrenched on the same land since the early 1800s, the Howlands have, for seven generations,...
Less : a novel
Greer, Andrew Sean
Paper Book
A struggling novelist travels the world to avoid an awkward wedding in this hilarious Pulitzer Prize-winning novel full of "arresting lyricism and beauty" (The New York Times Book Review). WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZENational BestsellerA...
The way west : a novel
Guthrie, A. B.
Paper Book
The sequel to The Big Sky, The Way West is the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the American West by A. B. Guthrie, the Academy Award-nominated screenwriter of Shane. This enormously entertaining classic brings to life the adventure of the western passage and the pioneer...
Tinkers
Harding, Paul
Paper Book
Pulitzer Prize Winner and New York Times Bestseller "There are few perfect debut American novels. . . . To this list ought to be added Paul Harding's devastating first book, Tinkers. . . . Harding has written a masterpiece." --NPR "In Paul...
The old man and the sea
Hemingway, Ernest
Paper Book
A Scribner Classics Edition Told in his famed powerful and minimalist prose, this story of courage and personal triumph remains one of Ernest Hemingway's most enduring works. The Old Man and the Sea is one of Hemingway's most enduring works. Told in...
The Mambo Kings play songs of love
Hijuelos, Oscar
Paper Book
From FSG Classics, a special twenty-fifth anniversary edition of Oscar Hijuelos's beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love. It's 1949 and two young Cuban musicians make their way from Havana to the grand stage of New York City. It is the...
The orphan master's son : a novel
Johnson, Adam
Paper Book
The Pulitzer Prize-winning, New York Times bestselling novel of North Korea: an epic journey into the heart of the world's most mysterious dictatorship. "Imagine Charles Dickens paying a visit to Pyongyang, and you see the canvas on which [Adam] Johnson is painting...
The known world
Jones, Edward P.
Paper Book
From National Book Award-nominated author Edward P. Jones comes a debut novel of stunning emotional depth and unequaled literary power Henry Townsend, a farmer, boot maker, and former slave, through the surprising twists and unforeseen turns of life in antebellum Virginia,...
Demon Copperhead : a novel
Kingsolver, Barbara
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE * WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION A New York Times "Ten Best Books of the Year" * An Oprah's Book Club Selection * An Instant New York Times Bestseller * An Instant Wall Street Journal Bestseller * A #1 Washington Post Bestseller...
Interpreter of maladies : stories
Lahiri, Jhumpa.
Paper Book
 With a new Introduction from the author for the twentieth anniversary Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, this stunning debut collection unerring charts the emotional journeys of characters seeking love beyond the barriers of nations and generations. In...
To kill a mockingbird
Lee, Harper.
Paper Book
Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork of honor and injustice in the deep South--and the heroism of one man in the face of blind and violent hatred. One of the most cherished stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than forty languages,...
The executioner's song
Mailer, Norman.
Paper Book
Norman Mailer's Pulitzer Prize-winning and unforgettable classic about convicted killer Gary Gilmore now in a brand-new edition. Arguably the greatest book from America's most heroically ambitious writer, The Executioner's Song follows the short, blighted life of Gary...
The fixer
Malamud, Bernard.
Paper Book
The Fixer is the winner of the 1967 National Book Award for Fiction and the 1967 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. The Fixer (1966) is Bernard Malamud's best-known and most acclaimed novel -- one that makes manifest his roots in Russian fiction, especially that of Isaac...
The road
McCarthy, Cormac
Paper Book
A searing, postapocalyptic novel destined to become Cormac McCarthy's masterpiece. A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark....
Lonesome Dove : a novel
McMurtry, Larry.
Paper Book
The Pulitzer Prize­-winning American classic of the American West that follows two aging Texas Rangers embarking on one last adventure. An epic of the frontier, Lonesome Dove is the grandest novel ever written about the last defiant wilderness of America. Journey to the...
Tales of the South Pacific
Michener, James A.
Paper Book
Gone with the wind
Mitchell, Margaret
Paper Book
Since its original publication in 1936, Gone With the Wind--winner of the Pulitzer Prize and one of the bestselling novels of all time--has been heralded by readers everywhere as The Great American Novel. Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The...
House made of dawn
Momaday, N. Scott
Paper Book
"Both a masterpiece about the universal human condition and a masterpiece of Native American literature. . . . A beautiful artistic object, a book everyone should read for the joy and emotion of the language it contains." -- The Paris Review A special 50th...
Beloved : a novel
Morrison, Toni.
Paper Book
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER * NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A spellbinding novel that transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby. With a new afterword by the author.  This "brutally powerful, mesmerizing story" (...
The sympathizer
Nguyen, Viet Thanh
Paper Book
Now an HBO Limited Series from Executive Producers Park Chan-wook and Robert Downey Jr., Streaming Exclusively on Max Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction Winner of the 2016 Edgar Award for Best First Novel Winner of the 2016 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence...
Night Watch : a novel
Phillips, Jayne Anne
Paper Book
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER * LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN FICTION * A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR * From one of our most accomplished novelists, a mesmerizing story about a mother and daughter seeking refuge in the chaotic aftermath of the Civil War--and a...
The overstory : a novel
Powers, Richard
Paper Book
An Air Force loadmaster in the Vietnam War is shot out of the sky, then saved by falling into a banyan. An artist inherits a hundred years of photographic portraits, all of the same doomed American chestnut. A hard-partying undergraduate in the late 1980s electrocutes herself, dies, and is sent...
The shipping news
Proulx, Annie.
Paper Book
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Annie Proulx's The Shipping News is a vigorous, darkly comic, and at times magical portrait of the contemporary North American family. Quoyle, a third-rate newspaper hack, with a "head shaped like a crenshaw, no neck, reddish hair...features...
Gilead : a novel
Robinson, Marilynne.
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE * OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK * NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER A hymn of praise and lamentation from a 1950s preacher man. A testament to the sacred bonds between fathers and sons. A psalm of celebration and acceptance of the best and the worst that the...
American pastoral
Roth, Philip.
Paper Book
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER * NATIONAL BESTSELLER * From one of the most acclaimed writers of the twentieth century--a compulsively readable elegy for America's promises of prosperity, civic order, and domestic bliss, and "one of Roth's most powerful novels ever" (The New York Times)....
Empire falls
Russo, Richard
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * PULITZER PRIZE WINNER * The bestselling author of Nobody's Fool and Straight Man delves deep into the blue-collar heart of America in a work that overflows with hilarity, heartache, and grace. "Rich, humorous ... Mr. Russo's most...
The killer angels : a novel of the Civil War
Shaara, Michael.
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE * After more than a quarter of a century and three million copies in print, Michael Shaara's Civil War classic, The Killer Angels, remains as vivid and powerful as the day it was originally published.  July 1863. The Confederate Army of...
The stone diaries
Shields, Carol
Paper Book
The Stone Diaries is the story of one woman's life; a truly sensuous novel that reflects and illuminates the unsettled decades of our century. Born in 1905, Daisy Goodwill drifts through the chapters of childhood, marriage, widowhood, remarriage, motherhood and old age....
A thousand acres
Smiley, Jane
Paper Book
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER * The only hardcover edition of the "powerful and poignant" twentieth-century reimagining of Shakespeare's King Lear (The New York Times Book Review). * EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY CONTEMPORARY CLASSICS. * With a new introduction. This powerful novel centers on...
The grapes of wrath
Steinbeck, John
Paper Book
The Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression, a book that galvanized--and sometimes outraged--millions of readers. Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read A Penguin Classic First published in 1939...
Olive Kitteridge
Strout, Elizabeth.
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE * The beloved first novel featuring Olive Kitteridge, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of My Name is Lucy Barton and the Oprah's Book Club pick Olive, Again "Fiction lovers, remember this name: Olive...
The goldfinch
Tartt, Donna
Paper Book
A young New Yorker grieving his mother's death is pulled into a gritty underworld of art and wealth in this "extraordinary" and beloved Pulitzer Prize winner from the author of The Secret History that "connects with the heart as well as the mind" (Stephen King, New York Times Book...
A summons to Memphis
Taylor, Peter
Paper Book
One of the most celebrated novels of its time, the Pulitzer Prize winner A Summons to Memphis introduces the Carver family, natives of Nashville, residents, with the exception of Phillip, of Memphis, Tennessee. One of The Atlantic's Great American Novels of the...
A confederacy of dunces
Toole, John Kennedy
Paper Book
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize "A masterwork . . . the novel astonishes with its inventiveness . . . it is nothing less than a grand comic fugue."--The New York Times Book Review A Confederacy of Dunces is an American comic masterpiece. John Kennedy Toole's hero,...
Breathing Lessons
Tyler, Anne
Paper Book
Maggie and Ira Moran have been married 28 years, an average couple leading an average life. Except that Maggie Moran is a klutzy, impetuous busybody who will borrow the ear of any sympathetic listener who crosses her path, while her husband Ira is resigned to his wife's machinations, even as he...
Rabbit at rest
Updike, John.
Paper Book
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER * One of the most gifted American writers of the twentieth century brings back ex-basketball player Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, the late middle-aged hero of Rabbit, Run, who has acquired heart trouble, a Florida condo, and a second grandchild, and is looking for reasons...
The color purple
Walker, Alice
Paper Book
Now a Broadway musical featuring Jennifer Hudson Winner of the Pulitzer Prize Winner of the National Book Award   Published to unprecedented acclaim, The Color Purple established Alice...
The age of innocence
Wharton, Edith
Paper Book
Edith Wharton's acclaimed novel of love, duty, and half-known truths in Gilded Age New York society, with a foreword by bestselling author Elif Batuman Dutiful Newland Archer, an eligible young man from New York high society, is about to announce his engagement to May Welland, a...
The Nickel boys
Whitehead, Colson
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER   Winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction Winner of the 2019 Kirkus Prize for Fiction Finalist for the 2019 National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist for the 2021 DUBLIN Literary Awards Longlisted for the 2019...
The underground railroad : a novel
Whitehead, Colson
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * PULITZER PRIZE WINNER * NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER * A magnificent tour de force chronicling a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. * Now an original Amazon Prime Video series directed by...
Underground railroad : roman
Whitehead, Colson
Paper Book
The bridge of San Luis Rey
Wilder, Thornton
Paper Book
The authorized, original edition of Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer Prize-winning classic with a foreword by acclaimed author Russell Banks and an afterword by Wilder's nephew, Tappan Wilder, with illuminating documentary material about the novel and its rich literary history. "As close to...
The Caine mutiny : a novel of World War II
Wouk, Herman
Paper Book
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a perennial favorite of readers young and old, Herman Wouk's masterful World War II drama set aboard a U.S. Navy warship in the Pacific is "a novel of brilliant virtuosity" (Times Literary Supplement). Herman...

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