Fulfilling predictions, Colson Whitehead has won this year’s Pulitzer prize in fiction for The Underground Railroad (PRH/Doubleday; RH Audio; BOT).

it’s been quite a year for Whitehead, who went from doubting that anyone would read the book to its becoming a surprise Oprah pick, landing on nearly every best books list, as well as on the NYT Hardcover Fiction Best Seller list where it still remains after 33 weeks.

The other books winning Pulitzers this year, below.

History — Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy, Heather Ann Thompson, (PRH/PantheonRandom).
EarlyWord coverage here.

Biography or Autobiography — The Return, Hisham Matar, (PRH/Random House, just released in trade paperback). Note: Whitehead lost out to Matar earlier this year for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award

EarlyWord, NYT Critic’s Top Books of 2016

Poetry — Olio, Tyehimba Jess, (Wave Books, distributed by Consortium).
EarlyWord, NYT Critic’s Top Books of 2016

General Nonfiction –– Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, Matthew Desmond (PRH/Crown; recently released in trade paperback). Note: this title also won the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award For Nonfiction

EarlyWord, Titles to Know and Recommend, Week of February 29, 2016

Click her for the full list of winners as well as finalists in all categories.

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