The Pulitzer Prizewinners for 2009 were announced on April 20.
LETTERS, DRAMA and MUSIC:
Drama - Ruined by Lynn Nottage
History - The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed (W.W. Norton & Company)
Biography - American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham (Random House)
Poetry - The Shadow of Sirius by W.S. Merwin (Copper Canyon Press)
General Nonfiction - Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon (Doubleday)
Music - Double Sextet by Steve Reich, premiered March 26, 2008 in Richmond, VA (Boosey & Hawkes)
You can check out the complete list HERE.
3 comments:
Hmm... I have no comment on any of these.
Because the sad truth is that the only one I've heard of is the one about the Hemingses... and it's the usual less-than-surprising same old take on a topic we've all agreed on already for the last thirty years, namely that Tom J. boinked his slave and, not so surprisingly, all their kids got out of it was his genes and a slightly better servant job.
Yay Pulitzer.
Anyone heard of the rest? Anything worth reading in this short lifetime of ours?
I didn't recognize any of them either. Wonder if that says something about us or the choices?
Haha... I don't know. I tend to feel the same way whenever PEN Hemingway Awards or the Lit Nobel Prizes are announced. Maybe it says that even interested and wide readers like us aren't tuned in closely enough with the NYC literati and their odd priorities and tastes. And by odd I mean self-absorbed. How else did writers like Philip Roth or Norman Mailer ever come to be thought of as edgy, relevant, or even particularly good?
Or maybe it means we're just not cool enough. That I can live with.
At least this year I knew the Newberry Award winner -- Neil Gaiman's "Graveyard Book," which I'd read as soon as it was out. Technically a children's book, but not really. I recommend it. Right after you read his "Coraline," if you haven't.
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