The Night Watchman

The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It recognizes distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life, published during the preceding calendar year.

As the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel (awarded 1918–1947), it was one of the original Pulitzers; the program was inaugurated in 1917 with seven prizes, four of which were awarded that year (no Novel prize was awarded in 1917, the first one having been granted in 1918).

The name was changed to the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1948, and eligibility was expanded to also include short stories, novellas, novelettes, and poetry, as well as novels.

Finalists have been announced since 1980, usually a total of three.

• 2025 – James by Percival Everett
• 2024 – Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips
• 2023 – Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
• 2023 – Trust by Hernan Diaz
• 2022 – The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen
• 2021 – The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich
• 2020 – The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
• 2019 – The Overstory by Richard Powers
• 2018 – Less by Andrew Sean Greer
• 2017 – The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
• 2016 – The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
• 2015 – All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
• 2014 – The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
• 2013 – The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson
• 2012 – no award
• 2011 – A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
• 2010 – Tinkers by Paul Harding
• 2009 – Olive Ketteridge by Elizabeth Strout
• 2008 – The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by j. Diaz
• 2007 – The Road by Cormac McCarthy
• 2006 – March by Geraldine Brooks
• 2005 – Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
• 2004 – The Known World by Edward P. Jones
• 2003 – Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
• 2002 – Empire Falls by Richard Russo
• 2001 – The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
• 2000 – Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
• 1999 – The Hours by Michael Cunningham
• 1998 – American Pastoral by Philip Roth
• 1997 – Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser
• 1996 – Independence Day by Richard Ford
• 1995 – The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
  1994 – The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
  1993 – A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler
  1992 – A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
  1991 – Rabbit at Rest by John Updike
  1990 – The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos
  1989 – Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler
  1988 – Beloved by Toni Morrison
  1987 – A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor
  1986 – Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurray
  1985 – Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie
  1984 – Ironweed by William Kennedy
  1983 – The Color Purple by Alice Walker
  1982 – Rabbit is Rich by John Updike
  1981 – A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
  1980 – The Executioner’s Song by Norman Mailer
  1979 – The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever
  1978 – Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson
  1977 – no award
  1976 – Humboldt’s Gift by Saul Bellow
  1975 – The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
  1974 – no award
  1973 – The Optimist’s Daughter by Eudora Welty
  1972 – Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
  1971 – no award
  1970 – Collected Stories by Jean Stafford
  1969 – House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday
  1968 – The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styton
  1967 – The Fixer by Bernard Malamud
  1966 – Collected Stories by Katherine Anne Porter
  1965 – The Keepers Of The House by Shirley Ann Gnau
  1964 – no award
  1963 – The Reivers by William Faulkner
  1962 – The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O’Connor
  1961 – To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
  1960 – Advise and Consent by Allen Drury
  1959 – The Travels of Jamie McPheeters by R.L. Taylor
  1958 – A Death in the Family by James Agee
  1957 – no award
  1956 – Andersonville by MacKinley Kantor
  1955 – A Fable by William Faulkner
  1954 – no award
  1953 – The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
  1952 – The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
  1951 – The Town by Conrad Richter
  1950 – The Way West by A.B. Guthrie
  1949 – Guard of Honor by James Gould Cozzens
  1948 – Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener
  1947 – All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren
  1946 – no award
  1945 – A Bell for Adorno by John Hersey
  1944 – Journey in the Dark by Martin Flavin
  1943 – Dragon’s Teeth by Upton Sinclair
  1942 – In This Our Life by Ellen Glasgow
  1941 – no award
  1940 – The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
  1939 – The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
  1938 – The Late George Apley by John Philips Marquand
  1937 – Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
  1936 – Honey in the Horn by Harold L. Davis
  1935 – Now in November by Josephine Winslow Johnson
  1934 – Lamb in His Bosom by Caroline Miller
  1933 – The Store by T.S. Stribling
  1932 – The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
  1931 – Years of Grace by Margaret Ayers Barnes
  1930 – Laughing Boy by Oliver Lafarge
  1929 – Scarlet Sister Mary by Julia Peterkin
  1928 – The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
  1927 – Early Autumn by Louis Broomfield
  1926 – Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis
  1925 – So Big by Edna Ferber
  1924 – The Able McLaughlins by Margaret Wilson
  1923 – One of Ours by Willa Carther
  1922 – Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington
  1921 – The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
  1920 – no award
  1919 – The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington
  1918 – His Family by Ernest Poole