Pulitzer Prize

In writing his 1904 will, which made provision for the establishment of the Pulitzer Prizes as an incentive to excellence, Joseph Pulitzer specified solely four awards in journalism, four in letters and drama, one for education, and four traveling scholarships. In letters, prizes were to go to an American novel, an original American play performed in New York, a book on the history of the United States, an American biography, and a history of public service by the press. Since the inception of the prizes in 1917, the board, later renamed the Pulitzer Prize Board, has increased the number of awards to 21 and introduced poetry, music, and photography as subjects, while adhering to the spirit of the founder's will and its intent.

2005

Nonfiction:
Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 / Steve Coll (Winner)
Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found / Suketu Mehta
The Devil’s Highway: A True Story / Luis Alberto Urrea

Fiction:
Gilead / Marilynne Robinson (Winner)
War Trash / Ha Jin
An Unfinished Season / Ward Just

Biography:
de Kooning: An American Master / Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan (Winner)
Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare / Stephen Greenblatt
Under a Wild Sky: John James Audubon and the Making of The Birds of America / William Souder

History:
Washington’s Crossing / David Hackett Fischer (Winner)
Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age / Kevin Boyle
Conjectures of Order: Intellectual Life and the American South, 1810-1860 / Michael O’Brien

Drama:
Doubt, a parable / John Patrick Shanley (Winner)
Thom Pain (based on nothing) / Will Eno
The Clean House / Sarah Ruhl

Poetry:
Delights and Shadows / Ted Kooser (Winner)
The Orchard / Brigit Pegeen Kelly
Search Party: Collected Poems / William Matthews

2004

Nonfiction:
Gulag: A History / Anne Applebaum (Winner)
Rembrandt's Jews / Steven Nadler
The Mission: Waging War and Keeping Peace with America's Military / Dana Priest

Fiction:
The Known World / Edward P. Jones (Winner)
American Woman / Susan Choi
Evidence of Things Unseen / Marianne Wiggins

Biography:
Khrushchev: The Man and His Era / William Taubman (Winner)
Isaac Newton / James Gleick
Arshile Gorky: His Life and Work / Hayden Herrera 50561924

History:
A Nation Under Our Feet / Steven Hahn (Winner)
They Marched Into Sunlight / David Maraniss
Great Fortune: The Epic of Rockefeller Center / Daniel Okrent

Drama:
I Am My Own Wife / Doug Wright (Winner)
Man from Nebraska / Tracy Letts 60522331
Omnium Gatherum / Theresa Rebeck and Alexandra Gersten-Vassilaros

Poetry:
Walking to Martha's Vineyard / Franz Wright (Winner)
Middle Earth / Henri Cole
Eyeshot / Heather McHugh

2003

Nonfiction:
A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide / Samantha Power (Winner)
The Anthropology of Turquoise: Meditations on Landscape, Art, and Spirit / Ellen Meloy
The Blank Slate: the Modern Denial of Human Nature / Steven Pinker

Fiction:
Middlesex / Jeffrey Eugenides (Winner)
Servants of the Map: Stories / Andrea Barrett
You Are Not a Stranger Here / Adam Haslett

Biography:
Master of the Senate / Robert A. Caro (Winner)
The Fly Swatter / Nicholas Dawidoff
Beethoven: The Music and the Life / Lewis Lockwood

History:
An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943 / Rick Atkinson (Winner)
At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America / Philip Dray
Rereading Sex: Battles Over Sexual Knowledge and Suppression in Nineteenth Century America / Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz

Drama:
Anna in the Tropics / Nilo Cruz (Winner)
The Goat, or, Who is Sylvia? / Edward Albee
Take Me Out / Richard Greenberg

Poetry:
Moy Sand and Gravel / Paul Muldoon (Winner)
Music Like Dirt / Frank Bidart
Hazmat / J.D. McClatchy

2002