Pulitzer Prizes 1986: Complete list of winners

The 1986 Pulitzer Prizes delivered a year of sweeping narratives and unflinching examinations of American identity. Larry McMurtry’s monumental Lonesome Dove claimed the Fiction prize, a Western epic that would redefine the genre and introduce readers to some of literature’s most indelible characters. The honor cemented McMurtry’s place in the literary canon, though it was hardly his last encounter with major awards. Meanwhile, the two General Nonfiction winners that year—Joseph Lelyveld’s Move Your Shadow: South Africa, Black and White and J. Anthony Lukas’s Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families—reflected a Pulitzer committee intent on recognizing ambitious, immersive journalism that grappled with race, inequality, and the American experience.

The year’s other winners showed the Pulitzer’s traditional investment in scholarly rigor and lyric achievement. Elizabeth Frank’s Louise Bogan: A Portrait brought fresh insight to the life of the influential poet and critic, while Walter A. McDougall’s …the Heavens and the Earth traced the ideological battles underlying the space age, reminding readers that even humanity’s highest aspirations are earthbound by politics and power. Henry Taylor’s poetry collection The Flying Change rounded out the ceremony, proving that verse still held pride of place among American letters. Here are the complete winners from the 1986 Pulitzer Prize announcements:

Biography

• Louise Bogan: A Portrait by Elizabeth Frank

Fiction

• Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

General Nonfiction

• Move Your Shadow: South Africa, Black and White by Joseph Lelyveld
• Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families by J. Anthony Lukas

History

• …the Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age by Walter A. McDougall

Poetry

• The Flying Change by Henry Taylor