- Organizer
- The Pulitzer Prizes (Columbia University)
- Why it counts
- Awarded annually since 1918 by the Pulitzer Prize Board, administered by Columbia University, for distinguished fiction by an American author
- Held
- annual, early May, with the Pulitzer Prize announcement
Reigning winners
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction · 2026
- Daniel Kraus — Angel Down source 1 · source 2
| Year | Pulitzer Prize for Fiction |
|---|---|
| 2026 | Daniel Kraus — Angel Down |
| 2025 | Percival Everett — James |
| 2024 | Jayne Anne Phillips |
| 2023 | Barbara Kingsolver — Demon Copperhead Hernán Díaz — Trust |
| 2022 | Joshua Cohen — The Netanyahus |
| 2021 | Louise Erdrich — The Night Watchman |
| 2020 | Colson Whitehead — The Nickel Boys |
| 2019 | Richard Powers — The Overstory |
| 2018 | Andrew Sean Greer — Less |
| 2017 | Colson Whitehead — The Underground Railroad |
| 2016 | Viet Thanh Nguyen — The Sympathizer |
| 2015 | Anthony Doerr — All the Light We Cannot See |
| 2014 | Donna Tartt — The Goldfinch |
| 2013 | Adam Johnson — The Orphan Master's Son |
| 2011 | Jennifer Egan — A Visit from the Goon Squad |
| 2010 | Paul Harding — Tinkers |
| 2009 | Elizabeth Strout — Olive Kitteridge |
| 2008 | Junot Díaz — The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao |
| 2007 | Cormac McCarthy — The Road |
| 2006 | Geraldine Brooks — March |
| 2005 | Marilynne Robinson — Gilead |
| 2004 | Edward P. Jones — The Known World |
| 2003 | Jeffrey Kent Eugenides — Middlesex |
| 2002 | Richard Russo — Empire Falls |
| 2001 | Michael Chabon — The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay |
| 2000 | Jhumpa Lahiri — Interpreter of Maladies |
| 1999 | Michael Cunningham — The Hours |
| 1998 | Philip Roth — American Pastoral |
| 1997 | Steven Millhauser — Martin Dressler |
| 1996 | Richard Ford — Independence Day |
| 1995 | Carol Shields — The Stone Diaries |
| 1994 | Annie Proulx — The Shipping News |
| 1993 | Robert Olen Butler — A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain |
| 1992 | Jane Smiley — A Thousand Acres |
| 1991 | John Updike — Rabbit at Rest |
| 1990 | Oscar Hijuelos — The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love |
| 1989 | Anne Tyler — Breathing Lessons |
| 1988 | Toni Morrison — Beloved |
| 1986 | Larry McMurtry — Lonesome Dove |
| 1985 | Alison Lurie — Foreign Affairs |
| 1984 | William Kennedy — Ironweed |
| 1983 | Alice Walker — The Color Purple |
| 1982 | John Updike — Rabbit Is Rich |
| 1981 | John Kennedy Toole — A Confederacy of Dunces |
| 1980 | Norman Mailer — The Executioner's Song |
| 1979 | John Cheever — The Stories of John Cheever |
| 1978 | James Alan McPherson — Elbow Room |
| 1976 | Saul Bellow — Humboldt's Gift |
| 1975 | Michael Shaara — The Killer Angels |
| 1973 | Eudora Welty — The Optimist's Daughter |
| 1972 | Wallace Stegner — Angle of Repose |
| 1970 | Jean Stafford — The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford |
| 1969 | N. Scott Momaday — House Made of Dawn |
| 1968 | William Styron — The Confessions of Nat Turner |
| 1967 | Bernard Malamud — The Fixer |
| 1966 | Katherine Anne Porter — The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter |
| 1965 | Shirley Ann Grau — The Keepers of the House |
| 1963 | William Faulkner — The Reivers |
| 1962 | Edwin O'Connor — The Edge of Sadness |
| 1961 | Harper Lee — To Kill a Mockingbird |
| 1960 | Allen Drury — Advise and Consent |
| 1959 | Robert Lewis Taylor — The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters |
| 1958 | James Agee — A Death in the Family |
| 1956 | MacKinlay Kantor — Andersonville |
| 1955 | William Faulkner — A Fable |
| 1953 | Ernest Hemingway — The Old Man and the Sea |
| 1952 | Herman Wouk — The Caine Mutiny |
| 1951 | Conrad Richter — The Town |
| 1950 | A. B. Guthrie Jr. — The Way West |
| 1949 | James Gould Cozzens — Guard of Honor |
| 1948 | James A. Michener — Tales of the South Pacific |
| 1945 | John Hersey — A Bell for Adano |