Pulitzer Prize 2026 LIVE: Winners for excellence in journalism and arts

Uploaded: May 4, 202649 Likes

Watch live as the Pulitzer Prizes are an

Literary Hub

12 hours ago

Literary Hub » Here are the 2026 Pulitzer Prize winners.

Here are the 2026 Pulitzer Prize winners.

Literary Hub May 4, 2026

The winners and nominated finalists of the 2026 Pulitzer Prizes were announced today by administrator Marjorie Miller via remote video stream. The winners each take home $15,000 dollars and serious bragging rights, not to mention a ticket into a very illustrious club.

The full list of winners and nominated finalists from the arts & letters categories is below.

FICTION

Winner:

Angel Down by Daniel Kraus (Atria Books)

Finalists:

Audition by Katie Kitamura (Riverhead Books)

Stag Dance by Torrey Peters (Random House)

DRAMA

Winner:

Liberation by Bess Wohl

Finalists:

Bowl EP by Nazareth Hassan

Meet the Cartozians by Talene Monahon

HISTORY

Winner:

We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution by Jill Lepore (Liveright)

Finalists:

King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation by Scott Anderson (Doubleday)

Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City by Bench Ansfield (W.W. Norton & Company)

BIOGRAPHY

Winner:

Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution by Amanda Vaill (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Finalists:

The Life and Poetry of Frank Stanford by James McWilliams (University of Arkansas Press)

True Nature: The Pilgrimage of Peter Matthiessen by Lance Richardson (Pantheon)

MEMOIR

Winner:

Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Finalists:

I’ll Tell You When I’m Home by Hala Alyan (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster)

Clam Down: A Metamorphosis by Anelise Chen (One World)

Bibliophobia by Sarah Chihaya (Random House)

POETRY

Winner:

Ars Poetica by Juliana Spahr (Wesleyan University Press)

Finalists:

I Imagine I Been Science Fiction Always by Douglas Kearney (Wave Books)

The Intentions of Thunder by Patricia Smith (Scribner)

GENERAL NONFICTION

Winner:

There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America by Brian Goldstone (Crown)

Finalists:

A Flower Traveled in My Blood: The Incredible True Story of the Grandmothers Who Fought to Find a Stolen Generation of Children by Haley Cohen Gilliland (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster)

Mother Emanuel: Two Centuries of Race, Resistance, and Forgiveness in One Charleston Church by Kevin Sack (Crown)

MUSIC

Winner:

Picaflor: A Future Myth by Gabriela Lena Frank

In the Arms of the Beloved by Billy Childs

American Descent by Andrew Rindfleisch

CRITICISM

Winner:

Mark Lamster, The Dallas Morning News

Finalists:

Michael J. Lewis, The Wall Street Journal

Vinson Cunningham, The New Yorker
*

SPECIAL CITATION:

Julie K. Brown, “for her groundbreaking reporting in 2017 and 2018 that exposed Jeffrey Epstein’s systematic abuse of young women, the justice system that protected him, and, over time, his powerful network of associates and enablers.”

See the full list of winners—including all the writers recognized for journalism, commentary, photography, graphic arts, and reportage—here.

Literary Hub

The New York Times won three Pulitzer Prize awards on Monday, including for an investigation into how President Trump is profiting from his deal-making

The New York Times won three Pulitzer Prize awards on Monday, including for an investigation into how President Trump is profiting from his deal-making and news photography documenting devastation and starvation in Gaza.

The Washington Post won the prestigious public service prize.

The Times also won for opinion writing, for columns by M. Gessen on the rise of authoritarian regimes, and @theathletichq, the sports site owned by The New York Times Company, won in the audio category for the podcast “Pablo Torre Finds Out.”

The staff of The Times won for investigative reporting for articles that revealed the extent to which President Trump and his inner circle were enriching themselves through national security dealings.

@saher_alghorra, a contributor to The Times, was awarded the breaking news photography prize for a series of images that depicted the devastating toll of Israel's attacks on Gaza amid its war with Hamas, including the horrific conditions facing Palestinians.