The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It recognizes distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life, published during the preceding calendar year. As the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel, it was one of the original Pulitzers, for the program was inaugurated in 1917 with seven prizes, four of which were awarded that year. (No Novel prize was awarded in 1917; the first was awarded in 1918.)
Finalists have been announced from 1980, ordinarily a total of three.
In 31 years under the "Novel" name, the prize was awarded 27 times; in its first 69 years to 2016 under the "Fiction" name, 62 times. In 11 years, no novel received the award. It has never been shared by two authors. Three writers have won two prizes each in the Fiction category: Booth Tarkington, William Faulkner, and John Updike.
1917: no award given
1918: His Family by Ernest Poole
1919: The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington
1920: no award given
1921: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
1922: Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington
1923: One of Ours by Willa Cather
1924: The Able McLaughlins by Margaret Wilson
1925: So Big by Edna Ferber
1926: Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis (declined prize)
1927: Early Autumn by Louis Bromfield
1928: The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
1929: Scarlet Sister Mary by Julia Peterkin
1930: Laughing Boy by Oliver La Farge
1931: Years of Grace by Margaret Ayer Barnes
1932: The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
1933: The Store by Thomas Sigismund Stribling
1934: Lamb in His Bosom by Caroline Miller
1935: Now in November by Josephine Winslow Johnson
1936: Honey in the Horn by Harold L. Davis
1937: Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
1938: The Late George Apley by John Phillips Marquand
1939: The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
1940: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
1941: no award given
1942: In This Our Life by Ellen Glasgow
1943: Dragon's Teeth by Upton Sinclair
1944: Journey in the Dark by Martin Flavin
1945: A Bell for Adano by John Hersey
1946: no award given
1947: All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
1948: Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener
1949: Guard of Honor by James Gould Cozzens
1950: The Way West by A. B. Guthrie, Jr.
1951: The Town by Conrad Richter
1952: The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
1953: The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
1954: No award given
1955: A Fable by William Faulkner
1956: Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor
1957: No award givenThe Voice At The Back Door by Elizabeth Spencer
1958: A Death in the Family by James Agee (posthumous win)
1959: The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters by Robert Lewis Taylor
1960: Advise and Consent by Allen Drury
1961: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
1962: The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O'Connor
1963: The Reivers by William Faulkner (posthumous win)
1964: No award given
1965: The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau
1966: The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter by Katherine Anne Porter
1967: The Fixer by Bernard Malamud
1968: The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron
1969: House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday
1970: The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford by Jean Stafford
1971: No award given
1972: Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
1973: The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty
1974: No award givenGravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
1975: The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
1976: Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow
1977: No award givenA River Runs Through It by Norman MacLean
Roots by Alex Haley (special Pulitzer Prize)
1978: Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson
1979: The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever
Entries from this point on include the finalists listed after the winner for each year.
1980: The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer
Birdy by William Wharton
The Ghost Writer by Philip Roth
1981: A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (posthumous win)
Godric by Frederick Buechner
So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell
1982: Rabbit Is Rich by John Updike
A Flag for Sunrise by Robert Stone
Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
1983: The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler
Rabbis and Wives by Chaim Grade
1984: Ironweed by William Kennedy
Cathedral by Raymond Carver
The Feud by Thomas Berger
1985: Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie
I Wish This War Were Over by Diana O'Hehir
Leaving the Land by Douglas Unger
1986: Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler
Continental Drift by Russell Banks
1987: A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor
Paradise by Donald Barthelme
Whites by Norman Rush
1988: Beloved by Toni Morrison
Persian Nights by Diane Johnson
That Night by Alice McDermott
1989: Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler
Where I'm Calling From by Raymond Carver
1990: The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos
Billy Bathgate by E. L. Doctorow
1991: Rabbit at Rest by John Updike
Mean Spirit by Linda Hogan
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
1992: A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
Jernigan by David Gates
Lila: An Inquiry into Morals by Robert M. Pirsig
Mao II by Don DeLillo
1993: A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler
At Weddings and Wakes by Alice McDermott
Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates
1994: The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
The Collected Stories of Reynolds Price by Reynolds Price
Operation Shylock: A Confession by Philip Roth
1995: The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
The Collected Stories of Grace Paley by Grace Paley
What I Lived For by Joyce Carol Oates
1996: Independence Day by Richard Ford
Mr. Ives' Christmas by Oscar Hijuelos
Sabbath's Theater by Philip Roth
1997: Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser
The Manikin by Joanna Scott
Unlocking the Air and Other Stories by Ursula K. Le Guin
1998: American Pastoral by Philip Roth
Bear and His Daughter: Stories by Robert Stone
Underworld by Don DeLillo
1999: The Hours by Michael Cunningham
Cloudsplitter by Russell Banks
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
2000: Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
Close Range: Wyoming Stories by Annie Proulx
Waiting by Ha Jin
2001: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates
The Quick and the Dead by Joy Williams
2002: Empire Falls by Richard Russo
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
John Henry Days by Colson Whitehead
2003: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Servants of the Map: Stories by Andrea Barrett
You Are Not a Stranger Here by Adam Haslett
2004: The Known World by Edward P. Jones
American Woman by Susan Choi
Evidence of Things Unseen by Marianne Wiggins
2005: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
An Unfinished Season by Ward Just
War Trash by Ha Jin
2006: March by Geraldine Brooks
The Bright Forever by Lee Martin
The March by E. L. Doctorow
2007: The Road by Cormac McCarthy
After This by Alice McDermott
The Echo Maker by Richard Powers
2008: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
Shakespeare's Kitchen by Lore Segal
Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson
2009: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
All Souls by Christine Schutt
The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich
2010: Tinkers by Paul Harding
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin
Love in Infant Monkeys by Lydia Millet
2011: A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
The Privileges by Jonathan Dee
The Surrendered by Chang-Rae Lee
2012: No award given.Train Dreams by Denis Johnson
Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
The Pale King by David Foster Wallace (posthumous nominee)
2013: The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson
What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank by Nathan Englander
The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
2014: The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
The Son by Philipp Meyer
The Woman Who Lost Her Soul by Bob Shacochis
2015: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Let Me Be Frank with You by Richard Ford
The Moor's Account by Laila Lalami
Lovely, Dark, Deep by Joyce Carol Oates
2016: The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh NguyenGet in Trouble: Stories by Kelly Link
Maud's Line by Margaret Verble
Three writers to date have won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction multiple times, one nominally in the novel category and two in the general fiction category. Ernest Hemingway was selected by the 1941 and 1953 juries, but the former was overturned and no 1941 award was given.
Booth Tarkington, 1919, 1922
William Faulkner, 1955, 1963 (awarded posthumously)
John Updike, 1982, 1991
