Two Harvard alumni and a longtime Expository Writing preceptor were among the winners of the 2010 Pulitzer Prizes announced yesterday.
- Gene Weingarten, a Nieman Fellow in 1987-’88, now the nationally syndicated humor columnist for the Washington Post, won the Pulitzer for “a distinguished example of feature writing giving prime consideration to quality of writing, originality, and concision” for “his haunting story about parents, from varying walks of life, who accidentally kill their children by forgetting them in cars.” Weingarten also won the feature writing Pulitzer in 2008.
- Liaquat Ahamed, A.M. ’78, a professional investment manager who studied economics while at Harvard, won the Pulitzer for “a distinguished and appropriately documented book on the history of the United States” for Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World (Penguin), cited as “a compelling account of how four powerful bankers played crucial roles in triggering the Great Depression and ultimately transforming the United States into the world’s financial leader.”
- Paul Harding, who taught Expos from 2000 to 2008 as well as courses in the University Extension and Summer Schools, won the Pulitzer for “distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life,” for his first book, Tinkers (Bellevue Literary Press) “a powerful celebration of life in which a New England father and son, through suffering and joy, transcend their imprisoning lives and offer new ways of perceiving the world and mortality.”
