Colson Whitehead ’91 awarded second Pulitzer Prize

Friday, May 8, 2020 - 09:30 in Mathematics & Economics

Novelist Colson Whitehead has an interest in history, and now he has made some. The 1991 Harvard graduate won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in fiction on Monday for his novel “The Nickel Boys,” joining William Faulkner, John Updike, and Booth Tarkington as the only writers to win the prestigious prize twice. But unlike the other three, Whitehead’s wins are consecutive efforts, his last book, “The Underground Railroad,” having garnered a Pulitzer in 2017. Judges praised the novel, inspired by a brutal real-life reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida, for its “spare and devastating exploration of abuse … that is ultimately a powerful tale of human perseverance, dignity and redemption.” “Obviously I’m very honored and I hope that it raises awareness of the real-life model for the novel — the Dozier School for Boys — so that the victims and their stories are not forgotten,” Whitehead, 50, said in a statement. Former inmates of the...

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