Pulitzer Prizes 1968: Complete list of winners

The 1968 Pulitzer Prizes arrived at a pivotal moment in American culture, when the nation was grappling with social upheaval, Vietnam War protests, and profound questions about its own history and identity. That year’s selections reflected this turbulent backdrop, with winners who dared to examine controversial subjects and challenge conventional narratives. William Styron’s The Confessions of Nat Turner claimed the Fiction prize—a novel that sparked immediate and passionate debate for its portrayal of the historical slave rebellion—while Bernard Bailyn’s The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution won History, offering fresh scholarly insight into the founding era that many felt demanded reexamination.

The Pulitzer Prizes have long served as America’s most prestigious literary honors, and the 1968 selections showed the award committee willing to embrace ambitious, provocative work. George F. Kennan’s Memoirs took the Biography prize, presenting the Cold War strategist’s own account of his extraordinary career, while Will and Ariel Durant’s The Story of Civilization: Rousseau and Revolution demonstrated that sweeping popular history still held serious scholarly weight in the General Nonfiction category. Anthony Hecht’s The Hard Hours rounded out the list with the Poetry prize, a collection marked by formal mastery and psychological depth.

Here’s a closer look at each of the 1968 Pulitzer Prize winners:

Biography

• Memoirs by George F. Kennan

Fiction

• The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron

General Nonfiction

• The Story of Civilization: Rousseau and Revolution by Will and Ariel Durant

History

• The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution by Bernard Bailyn

Poetry

• The Hard Hours by Anthony Hecht