Harvard alumnus Tom Reiss ’86 wins Pulitzer for Biography

Bailyn, Kayyem, Wen named finalists.

For telling the long-overlooked story of Alex Dumas, the French Revolutionary soldier whose exploits and fate inspired his novelist son, Tom Reiss  ’86 today received the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography. The Pulitzer committee called The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo (Crown) “a compelling story of a forgotten swashbuckling hero of mixed race whose bold exploits were captured by his son, Alexander Dumas, in famous 19th century novels.” (For a taste of the book, read Reiss’s Vita of General Dumas from this magazine’s November-December 2012 issue.) The book was previously a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Reiss’s earlier biography, The Orientalist, the story of Lev Nussimbaum, “a Jew who transformed himself into a Muslim prince and became a best-selling author in Nazi Germany”—became an international bestseller.

Three alumni also numbered among the finalists for this year’s prizes:

  • Adams University Professor emeritus Bernard Bailyn, Ph.D. ’53, LL.D. ’99, for History, for The Barbarous Years: The Peopling of British North America: The Conflict of Civilizations, 1600-1675 (Knopf), a “luminous account of how the British colonies took root amid raw brutality, often with terrible consequences for the settlers as well as the native population.” (Read a review from our archives here.)
  • Juliette Kayyem ’91, J.D. ’95, of The Boston Globe, and a lecturer in public policy at Harvard Kennedy School, for Commentary, “for her colorful, well-reported columns on an array of issues, from women in combat to oil drilling in Alaska.”
  • Patricia Wen ’80, of The Boston Globe, for National Reporting, as one of five Globe reporters honored for “their aggressive coverage of the deadly national outbreak of fungal meningitis traced to a compounding pharmacy in suburban Boston, revealing how the medical regulatory system failed to safeguard patients.”

 

You might also like

Bringing Korean Stories to Life

Composer Julia Riew writes the musicals she needed to see.

Being Undocumented in America

Karla Cornejo Villavicencio’s writing aims to challenge assumptions. 

A New Narrative of Civil Rights

Political philosopher Brandon Terry’s vision of racial progress

Most popular

Harvard art historian Jennifer Roberts teaches the value of immersive attention

Teaching students the value of deceleration and immersive attention

How MAGA Went Mainstream at Harvard

Trump, TikTok, and the pandemic are reshaping Gen Z politics.

Shakespeare’s Greatest Rival

Without Christopher Marlowe, there might not have been a Bard.

Explore More From Current Issue

Two people moving large abstract painting with blue V-shaped design in museum courtyard.

A Harvard Art Museums Painting Gets a Bath

Water and sunlight help restore a modern American classic.

People sit in lawn chairs near a rustic barn at Cider Garden in New Salem on a sunny day.

CiderDays Festival Celebrates All Things Apple

Visiting small-batch cideries and orchards in Massachusetts

Julie Riew, wearing a white dress, playing guitar and singing into a microphone on stage.

Bringing Korean Stories to Life

Composer Julia Riew writes the musicals she needed to see.