On April 14, Donna Tartt’s much-anticipated and worthwhile third novel , The Goldfinch, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. (Insert applause here, and double applause for anyone who reads this 784-page book, because that’s a commitment.)
Literary awards are often a boys' club, but there has been good news for the Pulitzer Prize over the past decade: Of the past ten Pulitzer Prize winners for fiction, five have been women. If you're a reader of contemporary fiction, you know their names: Jennifer Egan, Elizabeth Strout, Geraldine Brooks, Marilyn Robinson. Tate is joining some serious company, huh?
However, the past decade has not been a barometer of Pulitzer Prize success for women. From 1917 to 1947, the committee awarded 27 prizes for fiction, but only 12 went to women. One of them was Edith Wharton, whose The Age of Innocence is now a classic. Gone with the Wind also won a Pulitzer Prize, because obviously . After 1948, the fiction category was changed to "Novel," which included collections of short stories, but this did not encourage more female winners. Since 1948, 60 Pulitzer Prizes for Fiction have been awarded. Final total number of women's fiction winners: 18. Ouch.
Who are these 18 women, these respected award-winning writers? What are these groundbreaking, heartbreaking books? Well, since you asked…
2014: The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
The epic story of a bird, a boy and a bomb.
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2011: Jennifer Egan , "The Goon Squad "
Not many Pulitzer Prize-winning books include PowerPoint presentations. Goon Squad does it—and it works.
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2009: Elizabeth Strout's "Olive Kitteridge "
Retired school teacher Olive Kitteridge is at the center of 13 interconnected stories about the troubled soul of the small town of Crosby, Maine.
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2006: "March" by Geraldine Brooks
Australian-American author Geraldine Brooks retells Little Women from the perspective of the March girls' father, a Civil War soldier.
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2005: Marilyn Robinson’s Gilead
Gilead is Robinson's much-anticipated second novel, following the critically acclaimed 1980 The Butler .
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2000: The Interpreter of Illness by Jhumpa Lahiri
Lahiri's first book, and some say the best, is a collection of nine stories. The book has sold more than 15 million copies worldwide.
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1995: The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
Esquire called Daisy Goodwill Fleet's fictional autobiography "a beautifully darkly satirical novel about misunderstandings and missed opportunities."
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1994: Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, Shipping News showcases Proulx's unique prose style and storytelling talent. To wit: "It was a month of fiery bliss. Then six years of misery."
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1992: A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
I remember first encountering this feminist retelling of King Lear in a college Shakespeare class. One of my classmates turned to me and said, "This is the best book I've ever read."
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1989: Breathing Lessons with Anne Tyler
Taylor was a Pulitzer finalist for "Dinner at Homesick" and 1986's "The Accidental Visitor" (my personal favorite). She finally won an award in '89 for her breathing lessons .
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1988: Loved by Toni Morrison
In 2006, a New York Times poll declared Beloved "the best American novel published in the past twenty-five years."
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1985: Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie
Alison Lurie deserves a wider audience. After all she won a Pulitzer Prize! (What I love most about her is love and friendship .)
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1983: The Color Purple by Alice Walker
This is an intense and moving story of a woman learning to overcome a lifetime of obstacles. The Color Purple has been adapted for screen, stage and radio.
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1973: Eudora Welty , The Optimist's Daughter
According to The New York Times , The Optimist's Daughter is "a marvel of compression, a book of small scope but profound significance that is worth a lifetime's work."
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1970: The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford
Over 500 pages from one of our premier short story writers. The collection includes the story "The Kids Are Bored on Sundays."
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1966: The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter
Porter's previously published works - Flowering Judas ; Pale Horse, Pale Rider ; Leaning Tower; a number of short stories are bundled into one large book. ( The Pale Horse, The Pale Rider is one of nine classic novellas by women you can read in a day.)
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1965: The Keepers Of The House by Shirley Ann Grau
This disturbing novel examines hypocrisy and racism, chronicling the lives of seven generations of a family living in the same house in rural Mississippi.
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1961: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
We put one bird at the beginning of the Pulitzer list and the other at the end. This Southern Gothic classic made Harper Lee the first woman to win the prize for fiction in nearly 20 years.
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