The Pulitzer Prize for fiction was awarded Monday (May 9) to two class-conscious novels: “Demon Copperhead,” Barbara Kingsolver’s modern recasting of the Dickens classic “David Copperfield,” and Hernan Diaz’s “Trust,” an innovative narrative of wealth and deceit set in 1920s New York. In the 105-year history of the category, this is the first time two fiction books have won the Pulitzer Prize. Officials have repeatedly declined to announce a fiction winner, most recently in 2012, according to the news agency Associated Press (AP).
"Trust" was named one of the year's best books by The New York Times and The Washington Post and won the Kirkus Prize for fiction. It was also on the long list for the Booker Prize. A young boy's perseverance and struggles as he grows up in southern Appalachia are the subject of Kingsolver's book, which was chosen by Oprah Winfrey for her book club last autumn and named by The Washington Post as one of the year's most anticipated books.
Kingsolver, 68, has long incorporated social issues into her books, which also include "The Bean Trees" and the Winfrey pick "The Poisonwood Bible," and she was instrumental in creating the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction. The author said in a phone interview on Monday that she sees the Pulitzer as an endorsement of not only her book but also of a misunderstood and undervalued region of the country. Kingsolver, an Appalachian native who currently resides on a farm in southwest Virginia, based "Demon Copperhead" in the area.
On Monday, a number of works with racial themes were honoured. After winning the Bancroft Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the Barbara and David Zalaznick Book Prize from the New-York Historical Society, Beverly Gage's widely praised book "G-Man," about longtime FBI director J Edgar Hoover, was awarded the Pulitzer for biography. The Pulitzer judges praised it for its "deeply researched and nuanced look" at Hoover's "monumental achievements and crippling flaws," including his persecution of Martin Luther King Jr. It was the first significant Hoover biography in decades.