MAY 7, 2024
openvy
The 2024 Pulitzer Prize winners and finalists have been announced ✨
The Pulitzer Prize, awarded by Columbia University, is regarded as the highest national honor in print journalism, literary achievement, and musical composition.
The winners and finalists are chosen across categories such as history, memoir, poetry, general nonfiction, fiction, and biography. Among them, "Night Watch" by Jayne Anne Phillips was one of the notable selections. Additionally, in the biography category, there were two winners.
Take a look 👇
"Night Watch," by Jayne Anne Phillips, delves into the relationship between a mother and daughter against the backdrop of the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston, West Virginia, in the aftermath of the Civil War. Nominated for the National Book Award, the book intricately explores the challenges of surviving war and its aftermath.
"Wednesday’s Child: Stories" by Yiyun Li is a compilation of short stories crafted over a decade, delving into themes of ageing and bereavement. The narratives explore a range of characters, including a woman who meticulously documents every individual she has lost, a middle-aged practitioner of Eastern medicine, and an 88-year-old biologist.
In "No Right to an Honest Living," Jacqueline Jones, a historian and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, explores the hypocrisy of pre-Civil War Boston. Despite its reputation for antislavery activism and abolitionism, the city's Black residents faced systemic discrimination in the workforce, enduring what Jones describes as "casual cruelty" and being relegated to lives of poverty with limited opportunities for fair employment.
"Same Bed Different Dreams" by Ed Park presents a speculative reimagining of Korean history, intertwining elements such as assassins, slasher films, and the perils of social media.
Tracy Daugherty's "Larry McMurtry: A Life" stands as the inaugural biography of McMurtry, known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning works like "Lonesome Dove" and "The Last Picture Show."
General nonfiction finalist: Fire Weather: A True Story From a Hotter World, by John Vaillant
The book recounts the devastating 2016 wildfires in Fort McMurray, Alberta, detailing their origins, path, and aftermath. The narrative intertwines elements of climate change, the presence of vast oil reserves, and the catastrophic consequences. Vaillant personifies fire, depicting it as a strategic and predatory force.
General nonfiction finalist: Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives, by Siddharth Kara
The book sheds light on the dark realities of cobalt mining, a crucial mineral for lithium-ion batteries in various modern devices. Kara, an academic with expertise in modern slavery, delves into the appalling working conditions and meager wages endured by cobalt miners, offering a compelling examination of this often-overlooked aspect of our global economy.
2
"Continental Reckoning: The American West in the Age of Expansion" by Elliott West provides an in-depth exploration of the 19th-century American West, examining its physical and cultural evolution. A timeline of the region's transformation into states, territories, and railroads and telegraph networks, starting with the coexistence of various Native cultures in the 1840s, follows through the decades.
Jonathan Eig's "King: A Life" is a profound exploration of the civil rights leader, drawing from a wealth of newly released materials including White House telephone transcripts, F.B.I. documents, letters, and oral histories.
❤️
Ilyon Woo's "Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey From Slavery to Freedom" recounts the remarkable tale of William and Ellen Craft, a couple enslaved in 1848. They ingeniously posed as a wealthy white man and his slave, embarking on a dangerous journey northward. Woo vividly narrates their perilous trek across the United States, culminating in their successful escape to England, where they penned a bestselling book detailing their daring escape.
❤️
Cristina Rivera Garza's "Liliana’s Invincible Summer: A Sister’s Search for Justice" is an inquiry into the tragedy of her sister's murder in 1990, using it as a focal point to explore the issue of femicide in Mexico.
❤️
Memoir finalist:
Andrew Leland, an experienced editor and podcaster, shares his journey living with retinitis pigmentosa in "The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight." He delves into the challenging aspects of his disability, observing the nature of sight and its boundaries.
Memoir finalist:
Acclaimed author Jonathan Rosen’s haunting investigation of the forces that led his closest childhood friend, Michael Laudor, from the heights of brilliant promise to the forensic psychiatric hospital where he has lived since killing the woman he loved. A story about friendship, love, and the price of self-delusion, The Best Minds explores the ways in which we understand—and fail to understand—mental illness.
This book recounts the tragic bus crash near Jerusalem from the perspective of a Palestinian father who lost his 5-year-old child in the incident. The father grapples with immense grief, exacerbated by the constraints imposed on Palestinians living in East Jerusalem. Thrall probes into the political, bureaucratic, and personal factors influencing the crash, juxtaposing individual culpability with broader political dynamics, as noted by our reviewer, Rozina Ali.
With Tripas, Brandon Som follows up his award-winning debut with a book of poems built out of a multicultural, multigenerational childhood home, in which he celebrates his Chicana grandmother, who worked nights on the assembly line at Motorola, and his Chinese American father and grandparents, who ran the family corner store.
It is rare to find in one collection an entire skyline burning and the quiet to follow a single worm, to hear soil breathe--in Jorie Graham's fifteenth poetry collection, you do.
cyberjunkie
Openvy
General nonfiction finalist: Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives, by Siddharth Kara
The book sheds light on the dark realities of cobalt mining, a crucial mineral for lithium-ion batteries in various modern devices. Kara, an academic with expertise in modern slavery, delves into the appalling working conditions and meager wages endured by cobalt miners, offering a compelling examination of this often-overlooked aspect of our global economy.
I'm looking forward to reading this! Added to my TBR.