The worlds of journalism, literature, and music once again hold their breath in anticipation of one of the most prestigious honors – the Pulitzer Prizes. Every year, these awards recognize the highest achievements, courage, and mastery of artists and journalists whose work illuminates critical events, tells captivating stories, and enriches our cultural heritage. The year 2025 is no exception.
Here are the winners of the 2025 Pulitzer Prizes in the categories of books, drama, music, and journalism.
📚 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
James by Percival Everett (Doubleday)
Release date: May 16 | Genre: Historical fiction
When Jim learns he is to be sold to another city and forever separated from his wife and daughter, he escapes his master’s home, trying to devise a plan to buy their freedom. Meanwhile, Huck flees his abusive father and joins Jim on a dangerous raft journey down the Mississippi toward the free Northern states — where the slave Jim may finally become the free man James.
Secretly literate, Jim records his tale from the escape to the joyful reunion with his family and the slave rebellion he later leads. A reinterpretation of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, James is written with tenderness and irony in a language learned from books and spoken by his fellow Black Americans.
Hailed as a New York Times bestseller and one of the 10 best books of 2024, James won the Kirkus Prize, the National Book Award for Fiction, and was nominated for the Booker Prize.
🎭 Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Purpose by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
A powerful play exploring the complex legacy and family dynamics of an upper-middle-class African-American family, whose patriarch was a central figure in the Civil Rights Movement. The work skillfully blends drama and comedy to examine how different generations define the concept of heritage.
📖 Pulitzer Prize for History
Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War
by Edda L. Fields-Black (Oxford University Press)
A richly detailed and revelatory account of a slave rebellion that freed 756 people in a single day, combining military strategy and family history in a narrative of resistance and liberation.
Native Nations: A Millennium in North America
by Kathleen DuVal (Random House)
A sweeping history of Native American nations and communities over a thousand years, offering a vivid, accessible portrayal of their resilience, innovation, and achievements amid conflict and displacement.
👤 Pulitzer Prize for Biography
Every Living Thing: The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life
by Jason Roberts (Random House)
A beautifully written dual biography of Carl Linnaeus and Georges-Louis de Buffon — 18th-century contemporaries devoted to identifying and classifying the natural world, whose legacies continue to shape our understanding of life today.
✍️ Pulitzer Prize for Memoir or Autobiography
Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir
by Tessa Hulls (MCD)
A moving literary work and visual exploration that brings to life three generations of Chinese women — the author, her mother, and grandmother — and the intergenerational trauma carried in their family histories.
📝 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
New and Selected Poems by Marie Howe (W. W. Norton & Company)
A career-spanning collection that uncovers universal themes of loneliness, mortality, and grace in the everyday experience of modern life.
📚 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction
To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement
by Benjamin Nathans (Princeton University Press)
A meticulously researched and illuminating account of Soviet dissent — how it was suppressed and revived again and again, told through the lives of courageous individuals fighting for threatened freedoms and hard-won rights.
🎼 Pulitzer Prize for Music
Sky Islands by Susie Ibarra
Premiered on July 18, 2024, at Asia Society, New York.
A composition about ecosystems and biodiversity that reimagines the role of the composer by blending soloist virtuosity with improvisational exploration.
🏅 Special Citations
Chuck Stone
A special posthumous citation awarded to Chuck Stone for his groundbreaking work as a journalist covering the Civil Rights Movement, his pioneering role as the first Black columnist at the Philadelphia Daily News (later syndicated in nearly 100 outlets), and for co-founding the National Association of Black Journalists 50 years ago.
📰 Pulitzer Prizes for Journalism 2025
🏆 Public Service
ProPublica – For urgent reporting by Kavitha Surana, Lizzie Presser, Cassandra Jaramillo, and Stacy Kranitz on pregnant women who died after doctors delayed critical care due to fear of violating vague “life of the mother” exceptions under strict abortion laws.
🏆 Breaking News Reporting
Staff of The Washington Post – For immediate and in-depth coverage of the July 13 assassination attempt on then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, combining police reporting with audio and visual forensics.
🏆 Investigative Reporting
Staff of Reuters – For a fearless exposé on regulatory failures in the U.S. and abroad that make fentanyl — one of the world’s deadliest drugs — cheap and easily accessible to American users.
🏆 Explanatory Reporting
Azam Ahmed, Matthieu Aikins (contributor), and Christina Goldbaum – The New York Times
For a compelling investigation into how U.S. policy sowed the seeds of its own failure in Afghanistan by supporting brutal militias that pushed civilians toward the Taliban.
🏆 Local Reporting
Alissa Zhu, Nick Thieme, and Jessica Gallagher – The Baltimore Banner & The New York Times
For a compassionate series on Baltimore’s fentanyl crisis and its disproportionate toll on older Black men, supported by a sophisticated statistical model shared across newsrooms.
🏆 National Reporting
Staff of The Wall Street Journal
For documenting the personal and political evolution of Elon Musk, including his shift toward conservative politics, drug use, and private conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
🏆 International Reporting
Declan Walsh and The New York Times
For a powerful investigation into the Sudan conflict, detailing foreign influence, the gold trade fueling it, and chilling forensic evidence of atrocities committed by Sudanese forces.
🏆 Feature Writing
Mark Warren (contributor) – Esquire
For a sensitive portrait of a Baptist pastor and small-town mayor who died by suicide after his hidden digital life was exposed by a far-right news site.
🏆 Commentary
Mosab Abu Toha (contributor) – The New Yorker
For essays on the physical and emotional devastation in Gaza, blending investigative reporting with personal memoir to convey the Palestinian experience of prolonged war with Israel.
🏆 Criticism
Alexandra Lange (contributor) – Bloomberg CityLab
For elegant, genre-defying writing on public spaces for families, using interviews, observations, and analysis to explore how architecture can help children and communities flourish.
🏆 Editorial Writing
Raj Mankad, Sharon Steinmann, Lisa Falkenberg, and Leah Binkovitz – Houston Chronicle
For a powerful editorial series on dangerous rail crossings, keeping the focus on affected communities while advocating for urgent safety reforms.
🏆 Illustrated Reporting and Commentary
Ann Telnaes – The Washington Post
For bold and creative commentary targeting powerful figures and institutions, which ultimately led to her departure from the publication after 17 years.
🏆 Breaking News Photography
Doug Mills – The New York Times
For a dramatic sequence of photos capturing the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, including a frame of a bullet flying through the air as he speaks.
🏆 Feature Photography
Moises Saman (contributor) – The New Yorker
For haunting black-and-white images of Syria’s Sednaya prison, exposing the lasting trauma of Assad’s torture regime and confronting viewers with its human cost.
(Moved by the jury from the Breaking News Photography category)
🏆 Audio Reporting
Staff of The New Yorker
For the “In the Dark” podcast — an intense blend of storytelling and relentless reporting, overcoming military resistance to investigate one of the Iraq War’s most high-profile crimes: the murder of 25 unarmed civilians in Haditha.
