This year’s Pulitzer Prize winners were announced by the organization on April 18, at 3pm ET. The ceremony honored winners from different spectrums such as journalism, literature, and musical composition. This year’s winners also included musicals, jazz music, and seafood reporting
The Pulitzer Prize is an award that grants achievements in categories such as newspaper, online journalism, literature, and music. It started in 1917 honoring Joseph Pulitzer a millionaire newspaper publisher.
The ceremony is held at Columbia University in the city of New York and is divided into twenty-one categories, winners receive a Pulitzer Prize certificate and a $10,000 cash award, except for the winner of the public service category who is also granted with a gold medal.
To be considered for a Prize, the applicant’s have to enter the categories with a $50 entry fee, while fitting in at least one of the specific prize categories. The awards are given by 102 judges who are previously selected by the Pulitzer Prize Board.
Judges are formed in juries of five members who will have the responsibility to examine each one of the published works. Each jury will be able to make three winner nominations, the board will then select the award winner by the majority of votes.
Current Categories and Winners
The Pulitzer Prize nominee section is divided into three categories that include: Journalism, Letters, Drama & Music and Special Citations.
The journalism category awards Writing, Public Service, Reporting (Local, national, explanatory, international and breaking news) Commentary, criticism, Editorial writing, cartooning and photography.
The letters, drama & music category features sections such as drama, fiction, history, autobiography, poetry, nonfiction, and music.
This year the public service award was granted to the Associated Press for an investigation of severe labor abuses tied to the supply of seafood to American supermarkets and restaurants. The investigation process reported that over 2,000 slaves were tied to the seafood distribution.
Reporters from the New York Times, The New Yorker and The Boston Globe were granted with reporting, writing and criticism awards.
On the Drama section, the broadway show “Hamilton” was honored with the Pulitzer Award while the music award went to Henry Threadgill for his avant-garde jazz music.
Fiction winner was the novel “The Sympathizer” written by Viet Thanh Nguyen.
Source: Pulitzer