Living Canon

Pulitzer Prizes 2018: Complete list of winners

The Pulitzer Prizes for 2018 celebrated an eclectic mix of American voices and stories, rewarding writers who tackled everything from intimate biography to sweeping historical investigation. The prestigious award season saw Andrew Sean Greer’s Less take home Fiction honors—a witty, genre-bending novel that delighted critics and readers alike—while Caroline Fraser’s meticulously researched Prairie Fires won Biography for its revelatory look at Laura Ingalls Wilder’s life beyond the beloved Little House books. These selections reflected the Pulitzer committee’s appetite for both literary innovation and rigorous historical work, with winners demonstrating remarkable range in both subject matter and approach.

The 2018 Pulitzers also showcased a commitment to examining America’s most pressing social realities. James Forman Jr.’s Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America claimed the General Nonfiction prize, offering a deeply researched examination of how Black communities and institutions have grappled with crime and incarceration. On the drama stage, Martyna Majok’s Cost of Living won recognition for its intimate portrayal of disability and desire, marking an important cultural moment for theater. Meanwhile, Frank Bidart’s Half-light: Collected Poems 1965-2016 brought decades of essential American poetry into the spotlight, and Jack E. Davis’s The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea expanded historical understanding of the nation’s coastal and environmental story.

Here’s the complete roster of this year’s extraordinary winners:

Biography

Drama

Fiction

  • Less by Andrew Sean Greer

General Nonfiction

History

Poetry