This month two books were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction – Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead and Hernan Diaz’s Trust. This got me thinking about this award and the book awards in general. Though I do not actively follow the Booker or Pulitzer awards, I have decided to find out how many books I read that won these prestigious prizes and what I thought about them. My results below (two separate columns for each award) show that I have only read a tiny fraction of the actual winners (14 Pulitzer for Fiction and 13 Booker prize winners), but from these I did enjoy and agree on the merits of many. The Booker Prize is awarded for “the best sustained work of fiction written in English and published in the UK and Ireland“, and I guess from the winners, that the (unusual) plot structure and the beauty of language are quite important with regards to this prize. The Pulitzer Prize is awarded for “for distinguished fiction published during the year by an American author, preferably dealing with American life“, so possibly, the power of the message/theme would be as important as the writing.
The Booker Prize Winners:
The Ones I Loved:
The Remains of the Day
The God of Small Things
The Ones I Found “Very Good”:
The Luminaries
Schindler’s List
The English Patient
Hotel du Lac
The Sense of an Ending
The Ones I Found “Ok”:
Possession: A Romance
Oscar & Lucinda
The Conservationist
The Ones I Did Not Get Along With:
The Life of Pi (I’ve also heard of this plagiarism case)
Lincoln in the Bardo (too whimsical for me?)
The Old Devils
The Ones I Want To Read:
Offshore (Penelope Fitzgerald)
Life & Times of Michael K (J.M. Coetzee)
Wolf Hall (Hilary Mantel)
Bring Up The Bodies (Hilary Mantel)
Short-listed nominees I particularly liked: Never Let Me Go, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, and A Little Life; and see also my two other shortlisted books’ reviews: The Blackwater Lightship and The Fishermen.
The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (& Novel) Winners:
The Ones I Loved:
To Kill A Mockingbird
The Age of Innocence
The Grapes of Wrath
Beloved
The Colour Purple
Gone with the Wind
The Goldfinch
The Nickel Boys
The Ones I Found “Very Good”:
The Hours
The Underground Railroad
The Ones I Found “Ok”:
The Road
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Less
The One I Did Not Get Along With:
Breathing Lessons
The Ones I Want To Read:
Trust (Hernan Diaz)
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (Michael Chabon)
Lonesome Dove (Larry McMurtry)
A Death in the Family (James Agee)
The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
The Bridge of San Luis Rey (Thornton Wilder)
Finalists I liked and reviewed: There There, and The Poisonwood Bible.
The day before yesterday, we also had the winner of the International Booker Prize 2023 – Georgi Gospodinov’s book Time Shelter and, and now also have the shortlists for both the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction and the Women’s Prize for Fiction, with its winners to be announced in June.
Further afield, I am also sporadically following the most prestigious French literary award – Le Prix Goncourt, which actually has a nominal monetary prize of 10 Euros, and have loved and reviewed some its winners (see my reviews of Chamoiseau’s Texaco, Gary’s The Roots of Heaven, and Le Tellier’s The Anomaly), and the big literary award from Italy – The Strega Prize, that was previously awarded to such “heavyweights” as Alberto Moravia, Primo Levi, Cesare Pavese, Umberto Eco, and Dino Buzzati (see my review of the winners – Morante’s Arturo’s Island, and Bufalino’s Night’s Lies). I am doing less well with the two prestigious literary prizes from Japan – the Akutagawa Prize and especially the Naoki Prize. Although I have read many author winners of the Akutagawa Prize (such as Shūsaku Endō, Yasushi Inoue, Kōbō Abe, Yōko Ogawa, Yoko Tawada), I have not read many of their actual winning books, save from Oyamada’s The Hole and Murata’s Convenience Store Woman.
Thoughts on Papyrus 
There is only one of your opinions that I disagree with. I found “Possession: A Romance” by A. S. Byatt a lot more than OK.
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Oh, I’ve read it many years ago, and I don’t know if I would love it now – it’s possible.
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Great, comprehensive post, Diana!
My take on the Pulitzers, about a year ago: https://daveastoronliterature.com/2022/05/15/favorite-pulitzer-winning-books/
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Many thanks, Dave!
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I have mostly only read the ones you loved and I agree with all of those. I also loved The Bridge of San Luis Rey and The Good Earth, though both would probably be considered cultural appropriation now. Book awards in general – it isn’t possible to choose a single “best book” so I think they perhaps unfairly single out certain titles. Why not honor a range of excellent books? But people like to have their choices simplified I suppose.
The one I am most annoyed about is The Old Devils winning over both The Handmaid’s Tale AND What’s Bred in the Bone by Robertson Davies, who should have won at some point. (As Atwood did, eventually).
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Cultural appropriation. I agree that the writer has to do their research well, but the revisionist history is also dangerous and double standards were employed regarding this concept. It may also stifle creativity. I think part of the meaning of art, fiction and its creation is a sense of wonder, and that may be wonder regarding another country, culture and way of life. Writers write to try understand something, and that may be another culture. We can only write from our points of view, and in the times of globalisation, we are capable of travelling everywhere, living anywhere, changing citizenships, and attuning to and assimilating different cultures.
Yes, I also believe The Handmaid’s Tale should have won, and the drawbacks of awards are also numerous. I guess there is this thinking that with any contest, there must be a single winner, like the Olympic games, or somethings. Wasn’t Woody Allen who said that “if you accept it when they say you deserve an award, then you have to accept it when they say you don’t.”
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I’ve read most of the Pulitzer Prize-winning books you loved; I also loved them. I would add Paul Harding’s Tinkers (2010) to my “loved” list.
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Tinkers sounds great!
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It is!
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The good thing about prizes is they bring more attention to books and reading, which is not a bad thing at all. The International Booker is one I follow along with the Walter Scott. I enjoy seeing the range of books nominated for the Women’s Prize and I love the Dublin Literary Award for its longlist because nominations come in from libraries around the world. I enjoy hearing news about other prizes, but don’t follow them closely.
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Yes, I have discovered many books through the awards! I don’t know much about the Dublin Literary Award, I have to investigate. Nominating books from world libraries sounds so great.
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Great idea of post!
Of all these titles, I have ony read 13. Yes, do read Mantel’s, and the whole trilogy. It’s fascinating to see how she describes the evolution of the character from one book to the next
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I am sure I will like Mantel, but starting on her books is also a bit daunting for me.
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I think you are totally up to that challenge. Not really challenging actually, I think. You could try the audio, I listened to the first two, I think. Really good
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I felt the same way. They were not favorites though the writing was incredible. It was the subject matter, I suspect.
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I really liked Kavalier & Clay. I also want to read Offshore, and have it on my Classics Club Spin list.
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I used to be more interested in the Booker when it promoted writers from colonial-legacy countries – now that it’s open to everyone writing in English it often goes to Brits or Americans who already get plenty of publicity. I have a tendency to assume I won’t enjoy prize-winning novels since they often seem to be picked for political correctness rather than literary merit, but I suspect I’m being a bit reverse-snobbish about that. I’m intrigued enough to go look at the lists of winners and see how many I’ve read and what I thought of them. I may copy your idea for a post, with attribution of course, if that would be OK with you? That is, if I find I’ve read enough of the winners to make a post about!
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Sure, it was such a fun post to make and I would love to know your stats!
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Your picks for the two prizes are great. I have read most of your favs, as they are mine too. Good taste.
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These were some interesting insights! I never actively search for award-winning books and, since my favorite genre by far is fantasy, I figured I probably wouldn’t have read that many of these – but I actually have! I wholeheartedly agree with you that The God of Small Things and To Kill a Mockingbird are excellent, and that Lincoln in the Bardo was a bit of a dud. I really didn’t like Beloved either, though 😅 (Unpopular opinion, I know.) In exchange, though, I quite enjoyed Life of Pi, even if I wouldn’t necessary call it a favorite…
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Thanks for sharing your opinions! I may give Life of Pi a re-read one of these days. The Hugo Award for best sci-fi or fantasy work is fun to follow at times, but I have read only a few winners. I also see some prejudice against fantasy works in most prestigious book awards and am obviously not happy about it. Clarke’s Jonathan Strange wasn’t even shortlisted for the Booker…
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I don’t follow the Booker prize (or other prizes) but I’ve read quite a few of them! The God of Small Things was in my lit syllabus and I thought it was good! Same for To Kill A Mockingbird, it made a huge impact on me when I first read it.
Demon Copperhead is also on my TBR so I’m excited for that.
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I think both awards (Booker & Pulitzer) and their winning picks are worth exploring, even if I don’t always like them. Sometimes I do, other times not so much. For example I just finished Demon Copperhead and liked The Goldfinch (a bit better) … I thought both Pulitzer winners worth reading. I like your lists above and find our tastes are pretty similar, Yay. Though I was a bit more favorable than you towards Life of Pi (and also the movie) … if he stole the idea – the execution of it was superb. The theme of the book is sad, profound, and creative. Hmm. But there are other ones I probably can’t force my way through. LoL.
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