Colson Whitehead '91 wins 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

The Nickel Boys wins the 2020 prize for fiction.

Photograph of Colson Whitehead

Colson Whitehead
Photograph by Chris Close 

In 2017, Colson Whitehead ’91 won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his harrowing novel The Underground Railroad, a story that translated that fraught effort to free enslaved people from a historic metaphor to an actual system of tracks and trains propelling Cora, his protagonist, on her northbound escape from slavery. Today Whitehead received a second Pulitzer for his equally harrowing novel The Nickel Boys, honored as “A spare and devastating exploration of abuse at a reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida that is ultimately a powerful tale of human perseverance, dignity and redemption.”

For more about Whitehead, read “A Literary Chameleon,” a profile from this magazine’s archives.

The Pulitzer Prize for Poetry was awarded to another Harvard affiliate, Jericho Brown, a Radcliffe Institute Fellow in 2009-2010, for The Tradition, “A collection of masterful lyrics that combine delicacy with historical urgency in their loving evocation of bodies vulnerable to hostility and violence.”

You might also like

Harvard’s New Playbook for Teaching with AI

Faculty across Harvard are rethinking assignments to integrate AI. 

Three Harvardians win MacArthur Fellowships

A mathematician, a political scientist, and an astrophysicist are honored with “genius” grants for their work.

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences Zeroes in on the Classroom Experience

Class schedules and academics are at the top of the agenda for Harvard faculty.

Most popular

What Trump Means for John Roberts's Legacy

Executive power is on the docket at the Supreme Court.

Rachel Ruysch’s Lush (Still) Life

Now on display at the Museum of Fine Arts, a Dutch painter’s art proved a treasure trove for scientists.

A Flu Vaccine That Actually Works

Next-gen vaccines delivered directly to the site of infection are far more effective than existing shots.

Explore More From Current Issue

Six women interact in a theatrical setting, one seated and being comforted by others.

A (Truly) Naked Take on Second-Wave Feminism

Playwright Bess Wohl’s Liberation opens on Broadway.

A person walks across a street lined with historic buildings and a clock tower in the background.

Harvard In the News

A legal victory against Trump, hazing in the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra, and kicking off a Crimson football season with style

A lively concert in a modern auditorium with an audience seated on multiple levels.

Concerts and Carols at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Tuning into one of Boston's best chamber music halls