The Pulitzer Prize Winners 2003

The Pulitzer Prize Winners 2003 

The Pulitzer Prizes, among the top literary and journalism awards in the United States, were dominated by themes of politics and war this year. 

FICTION 
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) 

In the spring of 1974, Calliope Stephanides, a student at a girls' school in Grosse Pointe, finds herself drawn to a chain-smoking, strawberry blond clasmate with a gift for acting. The passion that furtively develops between them - along with Callie's failure to develop - leads Callie to suspect that she is not like other girls. In fact, she is not really a girl at all. Spanning eight decades--and one unusually awkward adolescence- Jeffrey Eugenides's long-awaited second novel is a grand, utterly original fable of crossed bloodlines, the intricacies of gender, and the deep, untidy promptings of desire. 
(From the book jacket) 

Also nominated : 
"Servants of the Map: Stories" by Andrea Barrett (W.W. Norton) 
"You Are Not a Stranger Here" by Adam Haslett (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday) 

DRAMA 
Anna in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz 

Anna in the tropics is a play set in Ybor City, (Tampa), Florida in 1930. The romantic drama deals with a family of cigar makers whose loves and lives are played out against the backdrop of America in the midst of the Depression. 
(From the New Theater Web site) 

Also nominated : 
"The Goat or Who is Sylvia?" by Edward Albee
"Take Me Out" by Richard Greenberg. 

HISTORY
An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943 by Rick Atkinson (Henry Holt and Company) 

The liberation of Europe and the destruction of the Third Reich is an epic story of courage and calamity, of miscalculation and enduring triumph. Now, sixty years after America joined this titanic struggle, Rick Atkinson shows why no modern reader can understand the ultimate victory of the Allied powers without a grasp of the great drama that unfolded in North Africa in 1942 and 1943. 
(From the book jacket) 

Also nominated : 
"At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America" by Philip Dray (Random House), "Rereading Sex: Battles Over Sexual Knowledge and Suppression in Nineteenth Century America" by Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz (Alfred A. Knopf). 

BIOGRAPHY OR AUTOBIOGRAPHY 
Master of the Senate by Robert A. Caro (Alfred A. Knopf) 

Master of the Senate carries Lyndon Johnson’s story through one of its most remarkable periods: his twelve years, from 1949 to 1960, in the United States Senate. At the heart of the book is its unprecedented revelation of how legislative power works in America, how the Senate works, and how Johnson, in his ascent to the presidency, mastered the Senate as no political leader before him had ever done. The result is both a galvanizing portrait of the man himself the titan of Capitol Hill, volcanic, mesmerizing and a definitive and revelatory study of the workings of personal and legislative power. 
(From the book jacket) 

Also nominated :
"The Fly Swatter" by Nicholas Dawidoff (Pantheon Books) 
"Beethoven: The Music and the Life" by Lewis Lockwood (W.W. Norton). 

POETRY
Moy Sand and Gravel by Paul Muldoon (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) 

Paul Muldoon's ninth collection of poems, his first since Hay (1998), finds him working a rich vein that extends from the rivery, apple-heavy County Armagh of the 1950s, in which he was brought up, to suburban New Jersey, on the banks of a canal dug by Irish navvies, where he now lives. At the heart of the book is an elegy for a miscarried child, and that elegiac tone predominates, particularly in the elegant remaking of Yeats's "A Prayer for My Daughter" with which the book concludes, where a welter of traffic signs and slogans, along with the spirits of admen, hardware storekeepers, flimflammers, fixers, and other forebears, are borne along by a hurricane-swollen canal, and private grief coincides with some of the gravest matter of our age. 
(From the book jacket) 

Also nominated : 
"Music Like Dirt" by Frank Bidart (Sarabande Books) 
"Hazmat" by J.D. McClatchy (Alfred A. Knopf). 

GENERAL NON-FICTION 
"A Problem From Hell:" America and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power (Basic Books) 

"A Problem from Hell" is a path-breaking interrogation of the last century of American history. Drawing upon exclusive interviews with Washington's top policymakers, access to thousands of pages of newly declassified documents, and her own reporting from the modern killing fields, Power shows how those who urged U.S. action were thwarted again and again by ignorance, indifference, and, above all, a failure of imagination. 
(From the book jacket) 

Also nominated : 
"The Anthropology of Turquoise: Meditations on Landscape, Art, and Spirit" by Ellen Meloy (Pantheon Books) 
"The Blank Slate: the Modern Denial of Human Nature" by Steven Pinker (Viking). 

MUSIC
On the Transmigration of Souls by John Adams (Boosey & Hawkes)
Premiered by the New York Philharmonic on September 19, 2002 at Avery Fisher Hall. 

When the New York Philharmonic asked John Adams to create a musical commemoration for the victims of the 9/11 attacks, to be premiered a year after the tragic events, it must have seemed one of the most challenging commissions in the history of music, whether in terms of subject, timescale or expectations. Adams responded with, On the Transmigration of Souls, a work that is neither an official public memorial, nor a personalised response, but rather what he describes as "a memory space a place where you can go and be alone with your thoughts and emotions". 
(from Boosey & Hawkes Web site) 

Also nominated : 
"Three Tales" by Steve Reich, premiered on May 31, 2002 at the Spoleto Festival USA, Charleston, SC (Boosey & Hawkes)
"Camp Songs" by Paul Schoenfield, commissioned by Music of Remembrance and premiered on April 7, 2002 at MOR's Holocaust Remembrance concert, Not In Vain!, at Benaroya Hall, Seattle, WA

Newspaper Prizes

PUBLIC SERVICE 
Boston Globe for its courageous, comprehensive coverage of sexual abuse by priests, an effort that pierced secrecy, stirred local, national and international reaction and produced changes in the Roman Catholic Church. 

Also nominated : 
The Detroit News for the work of Norman Sinclair, Ronald Hansen and Melvin Claxton that revealed dangerous defects and spurred changes in a criminal justice system that allowed lawbreakers to get away with everything from petty theft to murder, and The Pensacola News Journal for its uncommon courage in publishing stories that exposed a culture of corruption in Escambia County, Fla., and resulted in the indictment of four of five county commissioners. 

BREAKING NEWS REPORTING 
Staff of Eagle-Tribune, Lawrence, Mass. for its detailed, well-crafted stories on the accidental drowning of four boys in the Merrimack River. 

Also nominated : 
The Baltimore Sun Staff for its compelling and comprehensive coverage of the sniper killings that terrorized the Washington-Baltimore region, and The Seattle Times Staff for its enterprising coverage of the many local connections to the ex-soldier and his teenage companion arrested in the sniper attacks in the Washington, D.C., region. 

INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING 
Clifford J. Levy of New York Times for his vivid, brilliantly written series "Broken Homes" that exposed the abuse of mentally ill adults in state-regulated homes. 

Also nominated : 
Alan Miller and Kevin Sack of the Los Angeles Times for their revelatory and moving examination of a military aircraft, nicknamed "The Widow Maker," that was linked to the deaths of 45 pilots (Moved by the Board to the National Reporting category, where it was also entered.), and The Seattle Times Staff for its outstanding blend of investigation and evocative storytelling that showed how a footloose Algerian boy evolved into a terrorist. 

EXPLANATORY REPORTING 
Staff of Wall Street Journal for its clear, concise and comprehensive stories that illuminated the roots, significance and impact of corporate scandals in America. (Moved by the jury from the Public Service category.) 

Also nominated : 
Jim Haner, John B. O'Donnell and Kimberly A.C. Wilson of The Baltimore Sun for "Justice Undone," their in-depth examination of the city's disturbingly low conviction rate in murder cases, and The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Staff for its painstaking explanation of chronic-wasting disease among deer in Wisconsin, and the impact of the affliction on the state's citizens, communities and culture. 

BEAT REPORTING 
Diana K. Sugg of Baltimore Sunfor her absorbing, often poignant stories that illuminated complex medical issues through the lives of people. 

Also nominated : 
Cameron W. Barr of The Christian Science Monitor for the extraordinary clarity, diversity and context in his ongoing coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and David Cay Johnston of The New York Times for his stories that displayed exquisite command of complicated U.S. tax laws and of how corporations and individuals twist them to their advantage. 

NATIONAL REPORTING 
Alan Miller and Kevin Sack of Los Angeles Times for their revelatory and moving examination of a military aircraft, nicknamed "The Widow Maker," that was linked to the deaths of 45 pilots.

Also nominated : 
The Chicago Tribune Staff for its engrossing exploration of the fall of Arthur Andersen, a once proud accounting firm, Anne Hull of The Washington Post for "Rim of the New World," her masterful accounts of young immigrants coming of age in the American South, and The New York Times Staff for its tenaciously reported and clearly written stories that exposed and explained corruption in corporate America. 

INTERNATIONAL REPORTING 
Kevin Sullivan and Mary Jordan of Washington Post for their exposure of horrific conditions in Mexico's criminal justice system and how they affect the daily lives of people. 

Also nominated :
Alix M. Freedman and Steve Stecklow of The Wall Street Journal for their remarkable reports revealing little-known ways that Saddam Hussein profited from the United Nations sanctions meant to punish him, and R.C. Longworth of the Chicago Tribune for "A Fraying Alliance," his perceptive series on emerging tensions between the United States and Europe. 

FEATURE WRITING 
Sonia Nazario of Los Angeles Times  for "Enrique's Journey," her touching, exhaustively reported story of a Honduran boy's perilous search for his mother who had migrated to the United States. 

Also nominated : 
Connie Schultz of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, for her moving story about a wrongfully convicted man who refused to succumb to anger or bitterness, and David Stabler of The Oregonian, Portland, for his sensitive, sometimes surprising chronicle of a teen-age prodigy's struggle with a musical talent that proved to be both a gift and a problem. 

COMMENTARY 
Colbert I. King of Washington Post for his against-the-grain columns that speak to people in power with ferocity and wisdom. 

Also nominated :

Edward Achorn of The Providence Journal, for his clear, tenacious call to action against government corruption in Rhode Island, and Mark Holmberg of the Richmond Times-Dispatch for his thought provoking, strongly reported columns on a broad range of topics. 

CRITICISM 
Stephen Hunter of Washington Post for his authoritative film criticism that is both intellectually rewarding and a pleasure to read. 

Also nominated : 
John King of the San Francisco Chronicle for his perceptive, passionate criticism of architecture and urban design and their impact on life in his city, and Nicolai Ouroussoff of the Los Angeles Times for his commanding reviews and essays on architectural development and preservation in an ever-evolving city. 


EDITORIAL WRITING 
Cornelia Grumman of Chicago Tribune for her powerful, freshly challenging editorials against the death penalty. 

Also nominated : 
Robert L. Pollock of The Wall Street Journal for his clear, compelling editorials on the Food and Drug Administration's delay in approval of new cancer drugs, and Linda Valdez of The Arizona Republic, Phoenix, for her passionate, persuasive editorials on illegal immigrants and on the state's flawed justice of the peace courts. 

EDITORIAL CARTOONING 
David Horsey of Seattle Post-Intelligencer for his perceptive cartoons executed with a distinctive style and sense of humor. 

Also nominated : 
Rex Babin of The Sacramento Bee for his arresting cartoons on a broad range of subjects, drawn with simple eye-catching imagery, and Clay Bennett of The Christian Science Monitor for his provocative portfolio of cartoons marked by clarity and simplicity. 

BREAKING NEWS PHOTOGRAPHY 
Photography Staff of Rocky Mountain News for its powerful, imaginative coverage of Colorado's raging forest fires. 

Also nominated : 
Carolyn Cole of the Los Angeles Times for her extraordinarily intimate depiction of the siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, and The Washington Times Photography Staff for its vivid capturing of the events and emotions stirred by the sniper killings in the Washington, D.C., region. 

FEATURE PHOTOGRAPHY
Don Bartletti of Los Angeles Times for his memorable portrayal of how undocumented Central American youths, often facing deadly danger, travel north to the United States. 

Also nominated : 
Matt Black, freelance photographer for the Los Angeles Times, for his striking images that documented the little known legacy of black sharecroppers who migrated to California's San Joaquin Valley during the Depression, and Brad Clift of The Hartford Courant for "Heroin Town," his dramatic pictures that spotlighted heroin addiction in a Connecticut city and helped produce positive change.