Percival Everett, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, and Edda L. Fields-Black won in their categories at the US’ Pulitzer Prize 2025 at Columbia University, USA on Monday, May 5, 2025.
The Pulitzer Prize is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, and online journalism, literature, and musical composition held annually in the United States. It was established by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fortune as a newspaper publisher, and is administered by Columbia University. The prize, founded in 1917, is worth US$15,000 to winners in each of the categories awarded. Previous winners include William Faulkner, John Updike, Colson Whitehead, Marcia Chatelain, Les Payne, Tamara Payne, Ada Ferrer, and James Ijame. Carl Phillips, Robert Samuels, and Toluse Olorunnipa won in their categories in 2023.
Columbia University announced the winners of the Pulitzer Prize with work by the following writers of African descent making the roll of honour;
Fiction
- James, by Percival Everett (Doubleday) – An accomplished reconsideration of ‘Huckleberry Finn’ that gives agency to Jim to illustrate the absurdity of racial supremacy and provide a new take on the search for family and freedom.
Drama
- Purpose, by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins – A play about the complex dynamics and legacy of an upper middle class African-American family whose patriarch was a key figure in the Civil Rights Movement, a skillful blend of drama and comedy that probes how different generations define heritage.
History
- Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War, by Edda L. Fields-Black (Oxford University Press) – A richly-textured and revelatory account of a slave rebellion that brought 756 enslaved people to freedom in a single day, weaving military strategy and family history with the transition from bondage to freedom.
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