The winners of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize were announced today — on the 170th birthday of Joseph Pulitzer — and though there were some surprises, the majority of the honors were bestowed on some of the year’s most talked about pieces of writing. For example, Colson Whitehead won for his ground-breaking work of fiction, The Underground Railroad. And C.J. Chivers of the New York Times snagged a Pulitzer for his heart-breaking portrayal of a soldier grappling with his life stateside in “The Fighter.”
The entire list of the other Pulitzer recipients can be found here, but below is a compendium of some of the celebrated works.
Explanatory Reporting: “The Panama Papers” (Investigative Consortium of Investigative Journalists, McClatchy, and the Miami Herald)
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Public Service: “Investigation of Abuses in the New York Police Department’s Enforcement of the Nuisance Abatement Law” (New York Daily News and ProPublica)
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Breaking News Reporting: “Coverage of the ‘Ghost Ship’ Fire” (East Bay Times, Oakland, CA)
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Feature Writing: “The Fighter” (C.J. Chivers, New York Times Magazine)
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Investigative Reporting: “Coverage of the Opioid Crisis Across West Virginia” (Eric Eyre, Charleston Gazette-Mail)
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National Reporting: “Investigation into Donald Trump’s Claims of Charitable Donations” (David Fahrenthold, Washington Post)
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Local Reporting: “Investigation into How Brigham Young University Treated Sexual Assault Victims” (Salt Lake Tribune)
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Criticism: Hilton Als, The New Yorker
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Breaking News Photography: “Images Published in the New York Times Detailing the Filipino Government’s Assault on Drug Dealers and Users” (Daniel Berehulak, freelance photographer)
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Feature Photography: Tavon Tanner, a Bullet, and What Happened on the Streets of Chicago (E. Jason Wambsgans, Chicago Tribune)
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Fiction: The Underground Railroad (Colson Whitehead)
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Non-Fiction: Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City (Matthew Desmond)
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Biography: The Return: Fathers, Sons, and the Land in Between (Hisham Matar)
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History: Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy (Heather Ann Thompson)
Bonus: Read our excerpt of Blood in the Water from 2016 Pulitzer finalist, Tom Robbins.
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