The Pulitzer Prize for Memoir or Autobiography is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. The award honors "a distinguished and factual memoir or autobiography by an American author." Winners receive US$15,000.[1]
"An elegant and poignant coming of age account that considers intense, youthful friendships but also random violence that can suddenly and permanently alter the presumed logic of our personal narratives."[2][3]
"A spellbinding and brutally honest memoir drawing on art, travel, cultural observation and philosophical scholarship to convey the full experience of life as a disabled person whose view of humanity becomes increasingly compassionate."[2]
"A lyrical personal account that reclaims a family legacy of indigenous practices, beliefs, and narratives to challenge Western notions of history and memory."[2]
"A genre-bending account of the author's 20-year-old sister, murdered by a former boyfriend, that mixes memoir, feminist investigative journalism and poetic biography stitched together with a determination born of loss."[4][5]
"An emotionally resonant account by an author losing his eyesight from a rare genetic disorder, a memoir that explores the physical and conceptual experience of blindness, and that explains honestly how ableism fueled his reticence to accept his diagnosis."[5]
"An account of the author's brilliant childhood best friend and fellow student who was diagnosed as schizophrenic before fatally stabbing his girlfriend, a tragedy used to explore mental illness and the history of institutionalization."[5]
"An affecting work of literary art and discovery whose illustrations bring to life three generations of Chinese women—the author, her mother and grandmother—and the experience of trauma handed down with family histories."
"An elegiac meditation on motherhood and grief, written from the rage and pain of losing a child, but in a voice that ultimately resonates with beauty and hard-won acceptance."
"A questioning yet clear-eyed narrative of the author’s journey to become who she is from who she once was, set against a vanished New York City that is profoundly part of her past."
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