Two novels share Pulitzer in fiction as ‘His Name Is George Floyd’ wins for nonfiction

Two novels, “Demon Copperhead” and “Trust,” shared the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, while “His Name Is George Floyd” took home the nonfiction prize.

The winners and finalists for the 2023 Pulitzer Prizes in 23 categories across journalism and the arts were announced Monday afternoon via livestream, including authors of books in five categories — fiction, history, biography, poetry and general nonfiction — some of which won 2022 Times Book Prizes.

Monday’s joint win by Barbara Kingsolver and Hernan Diaz is the first of its kind since the first fiction Putlizer was awarded in 1918 (then known as the novel category). “The Immortal King Rao” by Vauhini Vara was a finalist for the 2023 award.

Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa’s “His Name Is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice,” won for nonfiction. The work delves deep into the life and ancestry of Floyd, who was murdered by Minneapolis police in 2020, revealing how racial inequities throughout history had shaped him.

In biography, the prize went to “G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century,” Beverly Gage’s fresh close-up of the former longtime FBI director, which also won a Times Book Prize. New Yorker writer Hua Hsu’s personal coming-of-age story, “Stay True,” won for memoir, while Jefferson Cowie took home the history prize for “Freedom’s Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power.”

See the complete list of finalists below.

Fiction

“Demon Copperhead,” Barbara Kingsolver

“Trust,” Hernan Diaz

“The Immortal King Rao,” Vauhini Vara

History

“Freedom’s Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power,” Jefferson Cowie

“Seeing Red: Indigenous Land, American Expansion, and the Political Economy of Plunder in North America,” Michael John Witgen

“Watergate: A New History,” Garrett M. Graff

Biography

“G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century,” Beverly Gage

“His Name Is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice,” Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa

“Mr. B: George Balanchine’s 20th Century,” Jennifer Homans

Memoir or Autobiography

“Stay True,” Hua Hsu

“Easy Beauty: A Memoir,” Chloé Cooper Jones

“The Man Who Could Move Clouds: A Memoir,” Ingrid Rojas Contreras

Poetry

“Then the War: And Selected Poems, 2007-2020,” Carl Phillips

“Blood Snow,” dg nanouk okpik

“Still Life,” Jay Hopler (posthumous)

General Nonfiction

“His Name Is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice,” Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa

“Kingdom of Characters: The Language Revolution That Made China Modern,” Jing Tsu

“Sounds Wild and Broken: Sonic Marvels, Evolution’s Creativity, and the Crisis of Sensory Extinction,” David George Haskell

“Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of Our Nation,” Linda Villarosa