Pulitzer Prize: Biography

Christchurch City Libraries lists literary prize winners and links to catalogue searches, but we may not hold copies of all titles mentioned.

The Pulitzer Prizes are annual awards for achievements in American journalism, letters, drama and music. The prizes have been awarded by the Pulitzer Prize Board at Columbia University since 1917.

In 2023 the category that was formerly Biography or Autobiography was split into 2 prize categories; Biography, and Memoir or Autobiography.

See the other Pulitzer Prize categories winners and all the other literary prize winners we list.

2024

• King: A Life by Jonathan Eig Winner
• Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom by Ilyon Woo Winner (two prizes awarded this year)
• Larry McMurtry: A Life by Tracy Daugherty

2023

• G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage Winner
• His Name is George Floyd by Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa
• Mr. B: George Balanchine’s 20th Century by Jennifer Homans

2022

• Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist’s Memoir of the Jim Crow South by the late Winfred Rembert as told to Erin I. Kelly Winner
• The Doctors Blackwell: How Two Pioneering Sisters Brought Medicine to Women—and Women to Medicine by Janice P. Nimur
• Pessoa: A Biography by Richard Zenith

2021

• The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X, by the late Les Payne and Tamara Payne Winner
• Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath, by Heather Clark  
• Stranger in the Shogun’s City: A Japanese Woman and Her World, by Amy Stanley 

2020

• Sontag: Her Life and Work, by Benjamin Moser Winner
• Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century, by George Packer
• Parisian Lives: Samuel Beckett, Simone de Beauvoir, And Me, by the late Deirdre Bair

2019

• The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke Jeffrey C. Stewart Winner
• Proust's Duchess: How Three Celebrated Women Captured the Imagination of Fin-de-Siècle Paris Caroline Weber  
• The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale and the American Tragedy in Vietnam Max Boot

2018

• Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder Caroline Fraser Winner
• Richard Nixon: The Life John A. Farrell  
• Robert Lowell, Setting the River on Fire: A Study of Genius, Mania, and Character Kay Redfield Jamison

2017

• The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between Hisham Matar Winner
• In the darkroom Susan Faludi
• When Breath Becomes Air Paul Kalanithi

2016

• The Light of the World Elizabeth Alexander
• Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life William Finnegan Winner
• Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America T.J. Stiles

2015

• David I. Kertzer Winner
• Louis Armstrong: master of Modernism Thomas Brothers
• Stalin: volume I: paradoxes of power, 1878-1928 Stephen Kotkin

2014

• Margaret Fuller: a new American life Megan Marshall Winner
• Jonathan Swift: his life and his world Leo Damrosch
• Karl Marx: a Nineteenth-Century life Jonathan Sperber

2013

• The Black Count: glory, revolution, betrayal, and the real Count of Monte Cristo Tom Reiss Winner
• Portrait of a novel: Henry James and the making of an American masterpiece Michael Gorra
• The Patriarch: the remarkable life and turbulent times of Joseph P. Kennedy David Nasaw

2012

• George F. Kennan: an American life John Lewis Gaddis

2011

• Washington: a life Ron Chernow

2010

• The first tycoon: the epic life of Cornelius Vanderbilt T. J. Stiles

2009

• American lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House Jon Meacham

2008

• Eden’s outcasts John Matteson

2007

• The most famous man in America Debby Applegate

2006

• American Prometheus: the triumph and tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin

2005

• de Kooning: an American master Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan

2004

• Khrushchev: the man and his era William Taubman

2003

• Master of the Senate: the years of Lyndon Johnson vol. 3 Robert A. Caro

2002

• John Adams David McCullough

2001

• W. E. B. DuBois (volume 2) David Levering Lewis

2000

• Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov) Stacy Schiff

1999

• Lindbergh A. Scott Berg

1998

• Personal history Katharine Graham

1997

• Angela's ashes Frank McCourt

1996

• God: a biography Jack Miles

1995

• No ordinary time Doris Kearns Goodwin

1994

• W. E. B. DuBois D. Lewis

1993

• Truman David McCullough

1992

• Fortunate son: the healing of a Vietnam vet Lewis B. Puller Jr.

1991

• Jackson Pollock: an American saga Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith

1990

• Machiavelli in hell Sebastian Grazia

1989

• Oscar Wilde Richard Ellmann

1988

• Look homeward: a life of Thomas Wolfe David Herbert Donald

1987

• Bearing the cross: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference David J. Garrow

1986

• Louise Bogan: a portrait Elizabeth Frank

1985

• The Life and times of Cotton Mather Kenneth Silverman

1984

• Booker T. Washington: the Wizard of Tuskegee 1901-1915 Louis R. Harlan

1983

• Growing up Russell Baker

1982

• Grant: a biography William S. McFeely

1981

• Peter the Great: his life and world Robert K. Massie

1980

• The rise of Theodore Roosevelt Edmund Morris

1979

• Days of sorrow and pain: Leo Baeck and the Berlin Jews Leonard Baker

1978

• Samuel Johnson Walter Jackson Bate

1977

• A prince of our disorder: the life of T. E. Lawrence John E. Mack

1976

• Edith Wharton: a biography R.W.B. Lewis

1975

• The power broker: Robert Moses and the fall of New York Robert Caro

1974

• O’Neill, son and artist Louis Sheaffer

1973

• Luce and his empire W.A. Swanberg

1972

• Eleanor and Franklin Joseph P. Lash

1971

• Robert Frost: the years of triumph 1915-1938 Lawrence Thompson

1970

• Huey Long T. Harry Williams

1969

• The man from New York: John Quinn and his friends Benjamin Lawrence Reid

1968

• Memoirs George F. Kennan

1967

• Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain Justin Kaplan

1966

• A thousand days: J F Kennedy in the White House Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.

1965

• Henry Adams (three volumes) Ernest Samuels

1964

• John Keats Walter Jackson Bate

1963

• Henry James Leon Edel

1962

• No Award

1961

• Charles Sumner and the coming of the Civil War David Donald

1960

• John Paul Jones Samuel Eliot Morison

1959

• Woodrow Wilson American prophet Arthur Walworth

1958

• George Washington Volumes I-VI Douglas S. Freeman and Volume VII written John Alexander Carroll and Mary Wells Ashworth after Dr. Freeman’s death

1957

• Profiles in courage John F. Kennedy

1956

• Benjamin Henry Latrobe Talbot Faulkner Hamlin

1955

• The Taft story William S. White

1954

• The spirit of St. Louis Charles A. Lindbergh

1953

• Edmund Pendleton, 1721-1803 David J. Mays

1952

• Charles Evans Hughes Merlo J. Pusey

1951

• John C. Calhoun: American portrait Margaret Louise Coit

1950

• John Quincy Adams and the foundations of American foreign policy Samuel Flagg Bemis

1949

• Roosevelt and Hopkins Robert E. Sherwood

1948

• Forgotten first citizen: John Bigelow Margaret Clapp

1947

• The autobiography of William Allen White William Allen White

1946

• Son of the wilderness Linnie Marsh Wolfe

1945

• George Bancroft: Brahmin rebel Russell Blaine Nye

1944

• The American Leonardo: the life of Samuel F. B. Morse Carlton Mabee

1943

• Admiral of the ocean sea: a life of Christopher Columbus Samuel Eliot Morison

1942

• Crusader in crinoline: a life of Harriet Beecher Stowe Forrest Wilson

1941

• Jonathan Edwards Ola Elizabeth Winslow

1940

• Woodrow Wilson, life and letters Volumes VII and VIII Ray Stannard Baker

1939

• Benjamin Franklin Carl Van Doren

1938

• Andrew Jackson (2 volumes) Marquis James; Pedlar’s progress Odell Shepard

1937

• Hamilton Fish Allan Nevins

1936

• The thought and character of William James Ralph Barton Perry

1935

• R. E. Lee Douglas S. Freeman

1934

• John Hay Tyler Dennett

1933

• Grover Cleveland Allan Nevins

1932

• Theodore Roosevelt Henry F. Pringle

1931

• Charles W. Eliot Henry James

1930

• The raven Marquis James

1929

• The training of an American: the earlier life and letters of Walter H. Page Burton J. Hendrick

1928

• The American orchestra and Theodore Thomas Charles Edward Russell

1927

• Whitman Emory Holloway

1926

• The life of Sir William Osler (2 volumes) Harvey Cushing

1925

• Barrett Wendell and his letter M.A. DeWolfe Howe

1924

• From immigrant to inventor Michael Idvorsky Pupin

1923

• The life and letters of Walter H. Page Burton J. Hendrick

1922

• A daughter of the middle border Hamlin Garland

1921

• The Americanization of Edward Bok Edward Bok

1920

• The life of John Marshall (4 volumes) Albert J. Beveridge

1919

• The education of Henry Adams Henry Adams

1918

• Benjamin Franklin self-revealed William Cabell Bruce

1917

• Julia Ward Howe Laura E. Richards and Maude Howe Elliott, assisted by Florence Howe Hall