Entertainment
Every Book That Won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in the 2020s, Ranked
The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, one of the 23 annual prizes handed out by Columbia University in New York City, was one of the original Pulitzer Prizes. It was originally called the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1917, and its name wouldn’t be changed until 1948. Since then, an American author has been rewarded every year for having written a piece of fiction so remarkable, so unforgettable, and so reflective of the high standards of American literature that they proved themselves worthy of such a prestigious honor.
In the 2020s, eight books have made their way to a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and they’re all absolutely remarkable works that deserved every last bit of that love. They deal with a vast array of subjects and themes, covering all manner of tones and genres and written in all sorts of different styles. Indeed, reading the Pulitzer winners of the last six years is a perfect way of getting a feel for the remarkable contemporary state of American literature.
8
‘Night Watch’ (2023)
Winner of the 2024 Pulitzer, Jayne Anne Phillips‘ Night Watch is one of the most remarkable pieces of historical fiction to have come out of the American publishing space throughout the last decade. In it, a traumatized mother and her young daughter find refuge at a West Virginia asylum after the Civil War, discovering ways to restore their scarred identities. Phillips has said that she didn’t outline the plot in advance, and that the characters and their stories instead kept coming to her as naturally as if they had been real.
It was precisely that realism, as well as the harrowing way in which Phillips deals with such complex subject matter, that allowed Night Watch to become a Pulitzer recipient. Combining some beautifully lyrical prose with a level of historical, emotional, and thematic scope that only a Pulitzer-winning novel could have possibly hoped to contain, Night Watch may be a bit too dense and melodramatic to really stand out as one of the best Pulitzer winners of the 2020s, but it’s a must-read nonetheless.
7
‘The Netanyahus’ (2021)
The full title of Joshua Cohen‘s winner of the 2022 Pulitzer for Fiction is The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family, and it’s just as complex and layered a novel as that title would have you hope. The book is a fictionalized account of the encounter between American critic and Yale Sterling Professor of Humanities Harold Bloom, and Benzion Netanyahu and his family at an upstate New York college in the late ’50s. Needless to say, it’s daunting subject matter, which only makes it more remarkable that Cohen handled it well enough to earn a Pulitzer.
Is The Netanyahus one of the best American book masterpieces of the 21st century? Perhaps not, seeing as some critics have pointed to its structure as odd and to Cohen’s prose as somewhat pretentious. What, then, earned it a Pulitzer? Perhaps it’s the exceptional balance between sharp humor, well-researched history, and powerful drama. Perhaps it’s the ways it blends genres more consistently and intelligently than most 21st-century American books. Perhaps it’s the way Cohen confronts two competing visions of Jewish identity in a post-Holocaust society. Either way, The Netanyahus is a fascinating read.
6
‘Trust’ (2022)
There has only ever been one tie in the history of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and that was 2023. However, saying that Argentine-American author Hernan Diaz‘s Trust is the lesser of that year’s two winners barely means anything at all, because it’s still one of the most acclaimed American books of the decade so far. The story centers on a powerful Wall Street tycoon and his wife in New York City in the ’20s, as he’s accused of having caused the 1929 stock market crash after he makes a fortune from it.
Composed of four fragmented texts that at times contain mutually conflicting information, leaving it up to the viewer to determine the truth (and wonder who controls it), Trust is narratively, formally, and thematically genius. Its delectably meta novel-within-a-novel format allows Diaz to deconstruct the very nature of truth and interrogate the way personal myths are manufactured, while also serving as a potent critique of greed and a powerful celebration of women who have been rendered invisible by history. The framing device inevitably sacrifices some character depth and narrative momentum, but it’s difficult to even notice when Diaz’s writing is so enrapturing.
5
‘Angel Down’ (2025)
Best known for his work in horror and pitch-black thrillers, Daniel Kraus has collaborated with creatives of the stature of George A. Romero and Guillermo del Toro, but Angel Down (whose Pulitzer was handed out last May) is his most ambitious creative endeavor to date. It’s one of the best historical fiction books of the decade so far, a World War I novel written as a single, unbroken sentence about a cynical draft dodger and con man who unexpectedly finds a fallen angel on the battlefield. It’s not exactly a horror novel, but then again, what’s scarier than a 300-page book that’s written in a single sentence?
That may sound like an incredibly daunting prospect, but that’s the entire point of Angel Down. Kraus wanted to find a way to explore the psychological horror and existential dread of World War I and its inescapable cycle of death, and the solution he came to was so inventive and effective that its Pulitzer victory seems entirely unsurprising in retrospect. Is it a relentlessly exhausting novel? Sure, but its grittiness, surreal tone, and genre-bending style are absolutely irresistible, offering a novel whose artistic and thematic depth American literature has very rarely seen throughout the last six years.
4
‘The Night Watchman’ (2020)
Louise Erdrich of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians of North Dakota is widely recognized as one of the leading voices of the second wave of the Native American Renaissance, which has been completely revolutionizing American fiction since the ’60s. She herself was a Pulitzer finalist back in 2009 for The Plague of Doves, but it was The Night Watchman that finally made her a Pulitzer winner in 2021. It’s about Thomas, a night watchman at a factory in North Dakota, leading his community’s fight against a 1953 US government bill seeking to take their land.
Deeply moving period piece written with such profound humanity that the stakes really do feel sky-high throughout.
The plot may at times feel a little overstuffed or overly slow, but Erdrich balances those issues out with a perfectly researched and deeply moving period piece written with such profound humanity that the stakes really do feel sky-high throughout. It’s an epic filled with hard-hitting political activism, righteous rage, and Erdrich’s love for her community and her roots, which is nothing if not infectious. Her writing is beautifully compassionate and complex, because while The Night Watchman certainly has moments of injustice, it’s the moments of joy and humor that end up sticking out the most.
3
‘Demon Copperhead’ (2022)
Along with Trust, it was Barbara Kingsolver‘s Demon Copperhead that went on to win the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and there’s a very strong argument to be made that it’s the stronger novel of the two. Inspired by Charles Dickens‘ David Copperfield, it’s a historical fiction coming-of-age set in the impoverished mountains of Southern Appalachia in the late ’90s and early 2000s, following a boy thrust into a system seemingly designed to make him invisible.
The result is nothing short of one of the best American books of the 21st century. Kingsolver’s voice may at times feel a little didactic when going into explanations of modern American socioeconomic issues, but that often only adds to the book’s unique sense of personality. The way the author translates the general spirit of David Copperfield to a tale about the opioid crisis and structural poverty in rural Appalachia is so brilliant that Demon Copperhead should be considered essential reading for pretty much anyone, regardless of whether they’re from the US or not.
2
‘James’ (2024)
It seems that the Pulitzer Prize Board went out of 2023 and into 2024 still with a love for novels based on old English-language classics on their mind, because the 2025 Pulitzer recipient was Percival Everett‘s James, a reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, one of the best American books of all time. The book is told from the perspective of Huck Finn’s companion and protector, the escaped former slave Jim.
For one, Everett proves that creativity can come from even the most unexpected of places, because even though James takes an already-existing text as its scaffolding, what it builds around it feels entirely unique and fresh in every sense imaginable. Subversive in its look at Antebellum America, unapologetically scathing in its satirical sense of humor, and razor-sharp in how it blends genres to bring a whole new dimension to a strong contender for the title of The Great American Novel, James will likely only get better as it ages.
1
‘The Nickel Boys’ (2019)
There’s really no question about it: Colson Whitehead‘s The Nickel Boys, recipient of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, is not only the best of the last eight winners of the award, but even a strong contender for the title of best American novel of the last decade. With Whitehead also having won the Pulitzer in 2017 for The Underground Railroad, Nickel Boys made him the fourth (and latest) author ever to win two Pulitzers for Fiction. Based on the hugely abusive Dozier reform school in Florida, the story follows a young Black teenager in Jim Crow-era Florida who is wrongfully sent to a reformatory similar to Dozier School.
Whitehead’s style and voice are absolutely devastating in how they unflinchingly explore and dissect this gut-wrenching subject matter, examining America’s long history of systemic racism with a surprisingly restrained yet powerful prose. It’s perfectly paced, absolutely masterful in its level of character and thematic depth, and potently rooted in real history that everyone should know about. It’s also structurally flawless, with a final twist that completely recontextualizes everything that came before. That would make a re-read irresistibly tempting if it didn’t sound like such a gut-punch of an idea.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login