Celebrating This Year’s Pulitzer Prize Winners
Image courtesy of Pulitzer.org
The winners of the 2016 Pulitzer Prizes were announced yesterday in celebration of the most captivating, moving, and thoughtful works in journalism, literature, drama, and music over the past year. The Pulitzer Prize was first established by Columbia University in 1917, in recognition of then-newspaper giant Joseph Pulitzer. Since its inception, the Pulitzer committee hands out fourteen journalism prizes, recognizing work in a variety of mediums, as well as five book prizes, one drama prize, and one music composition prize each year. Those writers, composers, and photographers that are awarded this coveted prize mark their place in the history books and serve as a source of inspiration for generations to come.
Arthur Ashe was certainly an established author, with his touching memoir Days of Grace reaching the top of the New York Times Bestseller List in 1993. Additionally though, Ashe was a bibliophile, with an expansive home library of thousands of books on a variety of topics, with a particular focus on first editions. He would have undoubtedly read some of the works published by this and previous year’s Pulitzer Prize winners. So in celebration of his love of writing and this year’s winners, here are some highlights from the 2016 list:
Feature Writing: Kathryn Schulz for “The Really Big One” – The New Yorker (July 2016)
In this captivating piece, Schulz outlines the fallout of a possibly impending earthquake that would forever change the Northwest. She discusses how the Cascadia subduction zone on the Pacific Coast—the overlooked younger brother of the more widely recognized San Andreas fault line—could possibly present North America with the worst environmental disaster it has ever seen and the utter ignorance of FEMA about this potential crisis. The Pulitzer committee awarded the prize to Schulz for her “elegant scientific narrative of the rupturing of the Cascadia fault line, a masterwork of environmental reporting and writing.”
Read the full article here.
International Reporting: Alisa J. Rubin – The New York Times
Rubin was recognized for her extensive and bold coverage of Afghan women for whom she provided a platform so that their voices could reach the world. Her winning works in this area are “Fear of Taliban Drives Women Out of Kunduz,” “A Thin Line of Defense Against ‘Honor Killings,’” “Dangerous Culture Clash for Afghan Policewomen,” and the two-part article “A Mob Killing and Flawed Justice” and video “The Killing of Farkhunda,” a horrifying account of the brutal murder of an Afghan woman accused of burning the Quran. The committee stated that Rubin crafted “thoroughly reported and movingly written accounts giving voice to Afghan women who were forced to endure unspeakable cruelties.”
Read the full article here.
Feature Photography: Jessica Rinaldi for “Strider Wolf” – The Boston Globe (November 8, 2015)
In this startling work of photojournalism tilted “Strider Wolf”, Rinaldi communicates the story of young Strider Wolf, a young boy born into a poor family in rural Maine who must deal with the demons of his past and search for a new home. These images demonstrate the cyclical trap that is poverty, portraying the hope of Wolf, still an innocent boy but wise beyond his years, to break out of his prison. The Pulitzer Prize was awarded for the “raw and revealing photographic story of a boy who strives to find his footing after abuse by those he trusted.”
Watch the slideshow here.
Visit the Pulitzer Prize website for the complete list of this year’s winners.
Arthur Ashe was certainly an established author, with his touching memoir Days of Grace reaching the top of the New York Times Bestseller List in 1993. Additionally though, Ashe was a bibliophile, with an expansive home library of thousands of books on a variety of topics, with a particular focus on first editions. He would have undoubtedly read some of the works published by this and previous year’s Pulitzer Prize winners. So in celebration of his love of writing and this year’s winners, here are some highlights from the 2016 list:
Feature Writing: Kathryn Schulz for “The Really Big One” – The New Yorker (July 2016)
In this captivating piece, Schulz outlines the fallout of a possibly impending earthquake that would forever change the Northwest. She discusses how the Cascadia subduction zone on the Pacific Coast—the overlooked younger brother of the more widely recognized San Andreas fault line—could possibly present North America with the worst environmental disaster it has ever seen and the utter ignorance of FEMA about this potential crisis. The Pulitzer committee awarded the prize to Schulz for her “elegant scientific narrative of the rupturing of the Cascadia fault line, a masterwork of environmental reporting and writing.”
Read the full article here.
International Reporting: Alisa J. Rubin – The New York Times
Rubin was recognized for her extensive and bold coverage of Afghan women for whom she provided a platform so that their voices could reach the world. Her winning works in this area are “Fear of Taliban Drives Women Out of Kunduz,” “A Thin Line of Defense Against ‘Honor Killings,’” “Dangerous Culture Clash for Afghan Policewomen,” and the two-part article “A Mob Killing and Flawed Justice” and video “The Killing of Farkhunda,” a horrifying account of the brutal murder of an Afghan woman accused of burning the Quran. The committee stated that Rubin crafted “thoroughly reported and movingly written accounts giving voice to Afghan women who were forced to endure unspeakable cruelties.”
Read the full article here.
Feature Photography: Jessica Rinaldi for “Strider Wolf” – The Boston Globe (November 8, 2015)
In this startling work of photojournalism tilted “Strider Wolf”, Rinaldi communicates the story of young Strider Wolf, a young boy born into a poor family in rural Maine who must deal with the demons of his past and search for a new home. These images demonstrate the cyclical trap that is poverty, portraying the hope of Wolf, still an innocent boy but wise beyond his years, to break out of his prison. The Pulitzer Prize was awarded for the “raw and revealing photographic story of a boy who strives to find his footing after abuse by those he trusted.”
Watch the slideshow here.
Visit the Pulitzer Prize website for the complete list of this year’s winners.