The Pulitzers (2009-10)

The 2010 Pulitzer Prize book winners:

Fiction: Tinkers by Paul Harding (Bellevue Literary Press), "a powerful celebration of life in which a New England father and son, through suffering and joy, transcend their imprisoning lives and offer new ways of perceiving the world and mortality."

Drama: Next to Normal by Brian Yorkey and Tom Kitt (Theatre Communications Group), "a powerful rock musical that grapples with mental illness in a suburban family and expands the scope of subject matter for musicals."

History: Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World by Liaquat Ahamed (Penguin Press), "a compelling account of how four powerful bankers played crucial roles in triggering the Great Depression and ultimately transforming the United States into the world's financial leader."

Biography or Autobiography: The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt by T.J. Stiles (Knopf), "a penetrating portrait of a complex, self-made titan who revolutionized transportation, amassed vast wealth and shaped the economic world in ways still felt today."

Poetry: Versed by Rae Armantrout (Wesleyan University Press), "a penetrating portrait of a complex, self-made titan who revolutionized transportation, amassed vast wealth and shaped the economic world in ways still felt today."

General Nonfiction: The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy by David E. Hoffman (Doubleday), "a well documented narrative that examines the terrifying doomsday competition between two superpowers and how weapons of mass destruction still imperil humankind."

Book-related winners and finalists for the 2009 Pulitzer Prize were announced yesterday. The winners are:

Fiction: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (Random House)
Drama: Ruined by Lynn Nottage (Theatre Communications Group; not yet published)
History: The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed (Norton)
Biography: American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham (Random House)
Poetry: The Shadow of Sirius by W. S. Merwin (Copper Canyon Press)
General Nonfiction: Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon (Doubleday),

Finalists in each category included The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich and All Souls by Christine Schutt (fiction); Becky Shaw by Gina Gionfriddo and In the Heights by Lin-Manuel Miranda & Quiara Alegría Hudes (drama); This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust and The Liberal Hour: Washington and the Politics of Change in the 1960s by G. Calvin Mackenzie and Robert Weisbrot (history); Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt by H.W. Brands and The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century by Steve Coll (biography); Watching the Spring Festival by Frank Bidart and What Love Comes to: New and Selected Poems by Ruth Stone (poetry); Gandhi and Churchill: The Epic Rivalry that Destroyed an Empire and Forged Our Age by Arthur Herman and The Bitter Road to Freedom: A New History of the Liberation of Europe, 1945 by William I. Hitchcock (general nonfiction).