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The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 2026 winner

Angel Down

by Daniel Kraus

In the last weeks of the First World War, during the Meuse–Argonne offensive, a private and four other misfit soldiers are sent to find the source of an unearthly shrieking that is driving men mad in the trenches. What they find, tangled in barbed wire, is an angel, and their choice to hide her from an ambitious general sets off a desperate flight across the battlefield. Kraus tells the whole novel as one unbroken sentence, which keeps the pace relentless and lets war story, fable and horror run together.

Book detailsAbout Daniel Kraus

About the prize

The Pulitzer Prizes were created under the will of the newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer and are run by Columbia University in New York. The fiction award was the Prize for the Novel from 1918 to 1947 and has been the Prize for Fiction since 1948. A jury of three reads the entries and puts forward finalists, and the Pulitzer Prize Board chooses the winner, announced each spring. The board has withheld the award ten times since 1918, most recently in 2012, and split it between two books for the first time in 2023.

First given
1918
Based in
USA
We list
Fiction

Winners, year by year

100 winning books since 1918 (Fiction), newest first.

2020s

  1. 2026Angel Down by Daniel Kraus
  2. 2025James by Percival Everett
  3. 2024Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips
  4. 2023Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolverjoint winner
  5. 2023Trust by Hernan Diazjoint winner
  6. 2022The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family by Joshua Cohen
  7. 2021The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich
  8. 2020The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

2010s

  1. 2019The Overstory by Richard Powers
  2. 2018Less by Andrew Sean Greer
  3. 2017The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
  4. 2016The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
  5. 2015All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
  6. 2014The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
  7. 2013The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson
  8. 2012Not awarded
  9. 2011A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
  10. 2010Tinkers by Paul Harding

2000s

  1. 2009Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
  2. 2008The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
  3. 2007The Road by Cormac McCarthy
  4. 2006March by Geraldine Brooks
  5. 2005Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
  6. 2004The Known World by Edward P. Jones
  7. 2003Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
  8. 2002Empire Falls by Richard Russo
  9. 2001The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
  10. 2000Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

1990s

  1. 1999The Hours by Michael Cunningham
  2. 1998American Pastoral by Philip Roth
  3. 1997Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser
  4. 1996Independence Day by Richard Ford
  5. 1995The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
  6. 1994The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
  7. 1993A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler
  8. 1992A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
  9. 1991Rabbit at Rest by John Updike
  10. 1990The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos

1980s

  1. 1989Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler
  2. 1988Beloved by Toni Morrison
  3. 1987A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor
  4. 1986Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
  5. 1985Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie
  6. 1984Ironweed by William Kennedy
  7. 1983The Color Purple by Alice Walker
  8. 1982Rabbit Is Rich by John Updike
  9. 1981A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
  10. 1980The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer

1970s

  1. 1979The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever
  2. 1978Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson
  3. 1977Not awarded
  4. 1976Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow
  5. 1975The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
  6. 1974Not awarded
  7. 1973The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty
  8. 1972Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
  9. 1971Not awarded
  10. 1970Collected Stories by Jean Stafford

1960s

  1. 1969House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday
  2. 1968The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron
  3. 1967The Fixer by Bernard Malamud
  4. 1966The Collected Stories by Katherine Anne Porter
  5. 1965The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau
  6. 1964Not awarded
  7. 1963The Reivers by William Faulkner
  8. 1962The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O'Connor
  9. 1961To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
  10. 1960Advise and Consent by Allen Drury

1950s

  1. 1959The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters by Robert Lewis Taylor
  2. 1958A Death in the Family by James Agee
  3. 1957Not awarded
  4. 1956Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor
  5. 1955A Fable by William Faulkner
  6. 1954Not awarded
  7. 1953The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
  8. 1952The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
  9. 1951The Town by Conrad Richter
  10. 1950The Way West by A. B. Guthrie

1940s

  1. 1949Guard of Honor by James Gould Cozzens
  2. 1948Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener
  3. 1947All the King's Men by Robert Penn WarrenPulitzer Prize for the Novel
  4. 1946Not awarded
  5. 1945A Bell for Adano by John HerseyPulitzer Prize for the Novel
  6. 1944Journey in the Dark by Martin FlavinPulitzer Prize for the Novel
  7. 1943Dragon's Teeth by Upton SinclairPulitzer Prize for the Novel
  8. 1942In This Our Life by Ellen GlasgowPulitzer Prize for the Novel
  9. 1941Not awarded
  10. 1940The Grapes of Wrath by John SteinbeckPulitzer Prize for the Novel

1930s

  1. 1939The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan RawlingsPulitzer Prize for the Novel
  2. 1938The Late George Apley by John Phillips MarquandPulitzer Prize for the Novel
  3. 1937Gone with the Wind by Margaret MitchellPulitzer Prize for the Novel
  4. 1936Honey in the Horn by Harold L. DavisPulitzer Prize for the Novel
  5. 1935Now in November by Josephine Winslow JohnsonPulitzer Prize for the Novel
  6. 1934Lamb in His Bosom by Caroline MillerPulitzer Prize for the Novel
  7. 1933The Store by T. S. StriblingPulitzer Prize for the Novel
  8. 1932The Good Earth by Pearl S. BuckPulitzer Prize for the Novel
  9. 1931Years of Grace by Margaret Ayer BarnesPulitzer Prize for the Novel
  10. 1930Laughing Boy by Oliver La FargePulitzer Prize for the Novel

1920s

  1. 1929Scarlet Sister Mary by Julia PeterkinPulitzer Prize for the Novel
  2. 1928The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton WilderPulitzer Prize for the Novel
  3. 1927Early Autumn by Louis BromfieldPulitzer Prize for the Novel
  4. 1926Arrowsmith by Sinclair LewisPulitzer Prize for the Novel
  5. 1925So Big by Edna FerberPulitzer Prize for the Novel
  6. 1924The Able McLaughlins by Margaret WilsonPulitzer Prize for the Novel
  7. 1923One of Ours by Willa CatherPulitzer Prize for the Novel
  8. 1922Alice Adams by Booth TarkingtonPulitzer Prize for the Novel
  9. 1921The Age of Innocence by Edith WhartonPulitzer Prize for the Novel
  10. 1920Not awarded

1910s

  1. 1919The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth TarkingtonPulitzer Prize for the Novel
  2. 1918His Family by Ernest PoolePulitzer Prize for the Novel

2026 finalists

Winner announced on 4 May 2026.

Facts checked on 12 October 2026 against en.wikipedia.org, pulitzer.org, pulitzer.org, apnews.com, en.wikipedia.org, openlibrary.org. The words on this page are Read2Reason’s own.