2022 Pulitzer Prize: The Finalist Books That Need to be on Your Reading List

2022 Pulitzer Prize: The winners of the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for 2022 were announced on the 9^th of May 2022. Here, in this article, we have for you the six books that actually won the prize in categories related to books. Included also are summaries of the works of art and exactly why they need to be on your reading list immediately. As always, the books that won have an immaculate writing style and voice but also are richly layered with social, historical and cultural undertones.

The Netanyahus: by Joshua Cohen

This book was the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2022. The Jewish historical fiction story takes place on the campus of Corbin University in New York, in the winter of 1959-60. Our principal protagonist is a Jewish historian who is also a professor at the university.  He joins a hiring committee to hire and recruit a professor of Jewish history from Israel. The writing in this book is phenomenal and powerful due to its wit and intellect. There are also elements of real life in this book, since it is infused with non fiction as well. This motley of fiction and fact, of history and reality, makes for a truly important work of art.

Covered With Night: by Nicole Eustace

This book won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in the category of history, and for good reason as it delves into the heart of a very important historical issue. The premise of the story hinges on a central act of brutality by whites against an indigenous person. In the summer of 1772, just before the signing of a treaty between European powers and Iroquois leaders, a group of white fur traders attack an indigenous hunter. This singular event becomes the precipitating agent for cross-cultural contact and early negotiations of justice. Ultimately, as leading historical Eustace deconstructs it, it becomes a foundational period for social justice in America today.

Chasing Me to My Grave: by Winfred Rembert and Erin Kelly

This memoir is a truly special one, for it is full of historically and socially important events along with a truly intimate story that knits them together. We follow Winfred, born in the Southern plantations of America in Georgia. His life consists of several important historical milestones, from the Civil Rights Movement to lynching and racial violence. Each of these experiences transforms him into who he truly is and who he is meant to be – an artist. In his bleak days of prison, he discovers artistry within, which transforms him without. Soon he becomes a famous artist, with exhibits in the museum and art galleries – an ode to his past.

Frank: Sonnets by Dianne Seuss

The winner of the Poetry category of the Pulitzer Prize 2022 is Seuss’s moving collection of verse called Frank. It has also won several other awards and accolades, such as the National Book Critics Circle Award, the PEN Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Poetry in 2021. From a middle-class Michigan life to the volatile and ambitious life in New York and a return to her homeland, Seuss chronicles her ordinarily extraordinary life in her fourteen verse poems. From more serious topics like substance abuse to the more light-hearted ones like pop culture and from intimate themes of motherhood to social themes of violence, Seuss’s poetry spans the length of her life.

Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival and Hope in an American City by Andrea Elliott

Biographies are some of the most difficult books to write because you need to put yourself in the shoes of someone else and write with empathy, sensitivity yet detachment and objectivity. Elliott nails this in her biography of Dasani Coates, which won her the Pulitzer Prize 2022 in the category of biography. This book follows eight years in Coates’ life as a homeless child wandering from one shelter to another with her family. In the process, she faces innumerable problems – and poverty is only the most obvious of them. Crime, drugs, sanitation, health, hunger, instability are some practical ones. The social ones lie even deeper – segregation, discrimination, and injustice are rampant. But a chance at a boarding school seems like the final escape – but is it?

Fat Ham: by James Ijames

This drama, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2022, is a reimagination of Shakespeare’s Hamlet as a comedy. Now, James is hardly the first person in the world to adapt a Shakespeare play to modern times. But he might just be one of the best ones. The setting is a barbeque place in Southern America, and the protagonist is a queer guy whose father was a huge butcher.

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