The 2024 Pulitzer Prize-winning books have just been announced. Winners include general non-fiction, biography, fiction, memoir, autobiography, and history. This year’s picks are impactful, gritty, and raw stories that reflect on history, evaluate what it means, and question how it affects society today.

Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips

Joining the ranks of iconic works of fiction such as Gone with the Wind and All the Light We Cannot See, Phillips’ meticulous novel immerses readers in 1874 post-Civil War America following the story of ConaLee and her mute mother, Eliza. Sent away to an asylum by her abusive father, ConaLee and Eliza must learn to survive with only each other and the confusing pieces of their shattered past. All the while, Eliza battles with her broken mind and looks back on everything from the last ten years that brought her to this tortured place.

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A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy by Nathan Thrall

This year’s general non-fiction Pulitzer Prize goes to Nathan Thrall for his work centered on the Israeli-Palestine conflict by focusing on its effects on everyday people, like Abed Salama. Abed was a family man, phone company employee, and political activist fighting for Palestinian freedom.  In February 2012, his life changed forever when Malid, his 5-year-old son, died in a bus crash in Jerusalem. Because of border checkpoints, dehumanizing identification systems for Palestinians, and other regulations designed to limit movement, he could not look for his son or help other children after the crash. This piece highlights only one story, but it serves as an example of the daily atrocities and hardships experienced by the Palestinian people.

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No Right to an Honest Living: The Struggles of Boston’s Black Workers in the Civil War Era by Jacqueline Jones

Jacqueline Jones, author of the Bancroft Prize novel, Goddess of Anarchy, now brings readers a story of abolition-era Boston and its mistreatment of Black residents. What they believed would be a city of equality and freedom, turned out to be a city where white residents narrowly tolerated Black people in a hierarchical structure that placed Black residents at the bottom. Jones takes accounts from newspapers, diaries, court records, and more, to tie together the story of the illusionary freedom in Boston that forced Black people to lead lives mock equality and minimal means.

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King: A Life by Jonathan Eig

This book is a biographical view of the change agent and era-defining man, Martin Luther King Jr. Many people, including Malcolm X, called him, “Uncle Tom”, claiming his protests were weak and done to satisfy the white institutions and people of power, without making enough change. King, while still focusing on the power of peaceful protest, became more radical toward the end of his life where he openly opposed the Vietnam War, catching the attention of the FBI. While King did amazing things for the United States and the world, he is no saint, which Eig addresses in King’s womanizing behaviors and plagiarism, while still acknowledging King’s role in modern debates on the state of equality in America. The biographic helps to humanize King and his role in the Civil Rights movement.

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Master Slave Husband and Wife: An American Love Story by Ilyon Woo

Woo relays the story of a slave couple facing a grueling journey to freedom. Ellen and William Craft have a love story unlike any other. With only each other to rely on, they manage to escape from their slave masters in Georgia and flee to Philadelphia, successfully traveling 1,000 miles by train, boat, and foot, disguising light-skinned Ellen as a sickly young boy and William as his servant. Set in a time and place where there seems to be nothing but hate, love’s resilience overcomes all to lead the Crafts to their freedom.

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Liliana’s Invincible Summer: A Sister’s Search for Justice by Cristina Rivera Garza.

Liliana’s Invincible Summer is the gut-wrenching tale of a sister’s loss and years of guilt and heartbreak to follow. Rivera Garza tells the story of her younger sister, Liliana, and her murder in 1990 by her abusive ex-boyfriend. Pulling stories together from police reports, diary entries, and case files, Rivera-Garza takes a close examination of her sister’s life, the warning signs prior to her murder, and the effects of the toxic patriarchal system Mexico imposes on young women and men, leading to a gruesome end.

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