The Pulitzer Prize winning books for 2021 were recently announced, and there are some great titles in the list. Here are the books that are already in the collection at Bell Library:
Winner in Fiction:
The Night Watchman, by Louise Erdrich (Harper)
It’s hard to believe that two years ago Louise Erdrich thought she might never write again. A cache of her grandfather’s letters provided her the inspiration she needed to write her latest novel. The reviewer Joshua Grace, writing in The Christian Century, says: “How does the book feel? It feels deeply and wonderfully human.”
Finalist in History:
The Deviant’s War: The Homosexual vs. the United States of America, by Eric Cervini (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Astoundingly, Eric Cervini won the Pulitzer Prize for his first book, a biography of Franklin Kameny, an astronomer who lost his job with the federal government in the 1950s because he was gay, and who later went on to become a key activist in the gay rights movement.
Winner in Biography:
The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X, by the late Les Payne and Tamara Payne (Liveright/Norton)
A powerful and revelatory account of the civil rights activist, built from dozens of interviews, offering insight into his character, beliefs and the forces that shaped him.
Finalist in Biography:
Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath, by Heather Clark (Alfred A. Knopf)
Also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, this highly anticipated biography of Sylvia Plath, based on never-before-studied materials, focuses on her remarkable literary and intellectual achievements, while restoring the woman behind the long-held myths about her life and art.
Winner in the General Nonfiction category:
Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy, by David Zucchino (Atlantic Monthly Press)
A gripping account of the overthrow of the elected government of a Black-majority North Carolina city after Reconstruction that untangles a complicated set of power dynamics cutting across race, class, and gender.
Finalists in the General Nonfiction category:
Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning, by Cathy Park Hong (One World/Random House)
Hong uses her own story as a portal into a deeper examination of racial consciousness in America today. A radically honest work of art, Minor Feelings forms a portrait of one Asian American psyche—and of a writer’s search to both uncover and speak the truth. The book also won the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Yellow Bird: Oil, Murder, and a Woman’s Search for Justice in Indian Country, by Sierra Crane Murdoch (Random House)
In Yellow Bird, a Native American woman searches for the truth about the disappearance of a white oilfield worker whom no one else seems to be looking for. Drawing on eight years of immersive investigation, Sierra Crane Murdoch has produced a profound examination of the legacy of systematic violence inflicted on a tribal nation and a tale of extraordinary healing.
Enjoy these great reads!
