Pulitzer Prize Winning Books by Black Writers (includes Finalists)
Since 1917 the Pulitzer Prize has honored excellence in journalism and the arts. The first award was presented in 1918. The Prize recognizes American authors in six “Letters and Drama” categories; Biography/Autobiography, Fiction, General Non-Fiction, History, Poetry, and Drama (technically not a book award, but plays are all available as books and have been included here).
The first African-American writer to win a Pulitzer Prize in any of the above categories was Gwendolyn Brooks who received the award for poetry for her collection Annie Allen in 1950.
One Book was a Finalist or Winner of a Pulitzer Prize in 1988
Winner - Fiction
Beloved
by Toni Morrison
22-time National Bestseller, Adult Fiction (Paperback)
- A 2024 National Bestselling Book – Adult Fiction (Paperback)
- A 2023 National Bestselling Book - Adult Fiction (Paperback)
- Voted #3 of the Top 100 Books of the 20th Century
- 5 Time AALBC.com Bestselling Book!
- 1988 American Book Award
Vintage Books (Jun 08, 2004)
Fiction, Paperback, 321 pages
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Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this spellbinding novel transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby. Sethe, its protagonist, was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free. She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe’s new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. Filled with bitter poetry and suspense as taut as a rope, Beloved is a towering achievement.
Toni Morrison’s masterpiece of a novel Beloved is based upon the true story of Margaret Garner, a fugitive slave from Kentucky, killed one of her children rather than permit her to be returned to slavery. Garner drowned in a shipwreck as she was being brought back to slavery.