Literary Awards 2011

PULITZER PRIZE

The Pulitzer Prizes are annual awards for achievements in American creativity in a wide array of fields. The prizes have been awarded by Columbia University since 1917, on the recommendation of a Pulitzer Prize Board. Fourteen prizes are given in journalism. Prizes in letters are for fiction, history, poetry, biography or autobiography, and general nonfiction. There are also prizes for drama and music. A gold medal is awarded for public service in journalism, while the other categories are accompanied by a $3,000 award paid from Pulitzer endowments.

FICTION - "A Visit from the Goon Squad" by Jennifer Egan (Alfred A. Knopf)

DRAMA - "Clybourne Park" by Bruce Norris

HISTORY - "The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery" by Eric Foner (W. W. Norton & Company)

BIOGRAPHY - "Washington: A Life" by Ron Chernow (The Penguin Press)

POETRY - "The Best of It: New and Selected Poems" by Kay Ryan (Grove Press)

GENERAL NONFICTION - "The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer" by Siddhartha Mukherjee (Scribner)

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD

Awards, which include a cash stipend, are given to books written by U.S. citizens "that have contributed most significantly to human awareness, to the vitality of our national culture and to the spirit of excellence." Panels of three judges select the winners from candidates that were published during the previous calendar year. Categories have changed through the years.

Fiction:  Jaimy Gordon, Lord of Misrule

Non-Fiction:  Patti Smith, Just Kids

Poetry: Terrance Hayes, Lighthead

Young People's Literature:  Kathryn Erskine, Mockingbird

NOBEL PRIZE in LITERATURE

The Nobel Prizes have been presented to the Laureates at ceremonies on December 10 each year. This day is significant as the birthday of Alfred Nobel (1833-1896), the inventor of dynamite, whose Nobel Foundation funds the awards. The stated intent of the Nobel Prize in Literature is to recognize an individual author for the contribution to humanity that has been made by the author's body of literary work.

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2010 was awarded to Mario Vargas Llosa "for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat".