The Mookse and the Gripes

2012 – no award given (this year the fiction jury recommended Denis Johnson’s Train Dream, Karen Russell’s Swamplandia!, or David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King, but the Pulitzer board couldn’t reach a majority on any book required to name a winner)
2011 – Jennifer Egan: A Visit from the Goon Squad
2010 – Paul Harding: Tinkers
2009 – Elizabeth Strout: Olive Kitteridge
2008 – Junot Diaz: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
2007 -  Cormac McCarthy: The Road
2006 – Geraldine Brooks: March
2005 – Marilynne Robinson: Gilead
2004 – Edward P. Jones: The Known World
2003 – Jeffrey Eugenides: Middlesex
2002 – Richard Russo: Empire Falls
2001 – Michael Chabon: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
2000 – Jhumpa Lahiri: Interpreter of Maladies
1999 – Michael Cunningham: The Hours
1998 – Philip Roth: American Pastoral
1997 – Steven Milhauser: Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer
1996 – Richard Ford: Independence Day
1995 – Carol Shields: The Stone Diaries
1994 – Annie Proulx: The Shipping News
1993 – Robert Olen Butler: A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
1992 – Jane Smiley: A Thousand Acres
1991 – John Updike: Rabbit at Rest
1990 – Oscar Hijuelos: The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love
1989 – Anne Tyler: Breathing Lessons
1988 – Toni Morrison: Beloved
1987 – Peter Taylor: A Summons to Memphis
1986 – Larry McMurtry: Lonesome Dove
1985 – Alison Lurie: Foreign Affairs
1984 – William Kennedy: Ironweed
1983 – Alice Walker: The Color Purple
1982 – John Updike: Rabbit Is Rich
1981 – John Kennedy Toole: A Confederacy of Dunces
1980 – Norman Mailer: The Executioner’s Song
1979 – John Cheever: The Stories of John Cheever
1978 – James Alan McPherson: Elbow Room
1977 – no award given (this year the fiction jury recommended Norman MacLean’s A River Runs Through It, but the Pulitzer committee made no award)
1976 – Saul Bellow: Humboldt’s Gift
1975 – Michael Shaara: The Killer Angels
1974 – no award given (this is the year the fiction jury had unanimously chosen Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow only to have the Pulitzer Board disregard their recommendation)
1973 – Eudora Welty: The Optimist’s Daughter
1972 – Wallace Stegner: Angle of Repose
1971 – no award given
1970 – Jean Stafford: The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford
1969 – N. Scott Momaday: House Made of Dawn
1968 – William Styron: The Confessions of Nat Turner
1967 – Bernard Malamud: The Fixer
1966 – Katherine Anne Porter: The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter
1965 – Shirley Ann Grau: The Keepers of the House
1964 – no award given
1963 - William Faulkner: The Reivers
1962 – Edwin O’Connor: The Edge of Sadness
1961 – Harper Lee: To Kill a Mockingbird
1960 – Allen Drury: Advise and Consent
1959 – Robert Lewis Taylor: The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters
1958 – James Agee: A Death in the Family
1957 – no award given
1956 – MacKinlay Kantor: Andersonville
1955 – William Faulkner: A Fable
1954 – no award given
1953 – Ernest Hemingway: The Old Man and the Sea
1952 – Herman Wouk: The Caine Mutiny
1951 – Conrad Richter: The Town
1950 – A.B. Guthrie, Jr.: The Way West
1949 – James Gould Cozzens: Guard of Honor
1948 – James A. Michener: Tales of the South Pacific

Before 1948, the prize was called the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel

1947 – Robert Penn Warren: All the King’s Men
1946 – no award given
1945 – John Hersey: A Bell for Adano
1944 – Martin Flavin: Journey in the Dark
1943 – Upton Sinclair: Dragon’s Teeth
1942 – Ellen Glasgow: In This Our Life
1941 – no award given
1940 – John Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath
1939 – Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings: The Yearling
1938 – John Philips Marquand: The Late George Apley
1937 – Margaret Mitchell: Gone with the Wind
1936 – Harold L. Davis: Honey in the Horn
1935 – Josephine Winslow Johnson: Now in November
1934 – Caroline Miller: Lamb in His Bosom
1933 – Thomas Sigismund Stribling: The Store
1932 – Pearl S. Buck: The Good Earth
1931 – Margaret Ayer Barnes: Years of Grace
1930 – Oliver La Farge: Laughing Boys
1929 – Julia Peterkin: Scarlet Sister Mary
1928 – Thornton Wilder: The Bridge of San Luis Rey
1927 – Louis Bromfield: Early Autumn
1926 – Sinclair Lewis: Arrowsmith (declined prize)
1925 – Edna Ferber: So Big
1924 – Margaret Wilson: The Able McLaughlins
1923 – Willa Cather: One of Ours
1922 – Booth Tarkington: Alice Adams
1921 – Edith Wharton: The Age of Innocence
1920 – no award given
1919 – Booth Tarkington: The Magnificent Ambersons
1918 – Ernest Poole: His Family
1917 – no award given