The acclaimed slavery novel has been rewarded alongside Lynn Nottage’s factory drama Sweat and Matthew Desmond’s nonfiction work Evicted

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Literary blockbuster novel The Underground Railroad, which depicts the journey of a young woman escaping from slavery via a fantastical train system, has won the Pulitzer prize for fiction. Current Broadway play “Sweat” has scored playwright Lynn Nottage her second Pulitzer Prize for Drama, with the award this year going to a show that has proven a timely look at a group of working-class friends in a declining factory town. We seem a lot more willing to spend money on tax write-offs than on direct assistance.”

Hisham Matar’s “The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between” won for biography/autobiography; the Pulitzer board said that Matar’s memoir about his native Libya “examines with controlled emotion the past and present of an embattled region.”

Tyehimba Jess’ “Oilo” was the poetry winner, cited for melding performance art with poetry “to explore collective memory and challenge contemporary notions of race and identity.”

The Pulitzer board gave the music award to Du Yun’s “Angel’s Bone” and called it a “bold” work which “integrates vocal and instrumental elements and a wide range of styles into a harrowing allegory for human trafficking in the modern world.”
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead and Sweat by Lynn Nottage win the Pultizer Prizes for Fiction and Drama respectively.