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Overview
This reading challenge is for The Pulitzer Prizes - Memoir or Autobiography category, introduced in 2023.
I have added finalists as bonus books. I plan to keep updating the challenge as the winners and finalists are announced each year in May.
https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-category/650
I have added finalists as bonus books. I plan to keep updating the challenge as the winners and finalists are announced each year in May.
https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-category/650
The Pulitzer Prizes - Memoir or Autobiography
17 participants (3 books)
Overview
This reading challenge is for The Pulitzer Prizes - Memoir or Autobiography category, introduced in 2023.
I have added finalists as bonus books. I plan to keep updating the challenge as the winners and finalists are announced each year in May.
https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-category/650
I have added finalists as bonus books. I plan to keep updating the challenge as the winners and finalists are announced each year in May.
https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-category/650
Challenge Books
1
Stay True
Hua Hsu
2023 Winner
An elegant and poignant coming of age account that considers intense, youthful friendships but also random violence that can suddenly and permanently alter the presumed logic of our personal narratives.
An elegant and poignant coming of age account that considers intense, youthful friendships but also random violence that can suddenly and permanently alter the presumed logic of our personal narratives.
2
Liliana's Invincible Summer: A Sister's Search for Justice
Cristina Rivera Garza
2024 Winner
A genre-bending account of the author’s 20-year-old sister, murdered by a former boyfriend, that mixes memoir, feminist investigative journalism and poetic biography stitched together with a determination born of loss.
A genre-bending account of the author’s 20-year-old sister, murdered by a former boyfriend, that mixes memoir, feminist investigative journalism and poetic biography stitched together with a determination born of loss.
3
Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir
Tessa Hulls
2025 Winner
An affecting work of literary art and discovery whose illustrations bring to life three generations of Chinese women – the author, her mother and grandmother, and the experience of trauma handed down with family histories.
An affecting work of literary art and discovery whose illustrations bring to life three generations of Chinese women – the author, her mother and grandmother, and the experience of trauma handed down with family histories.
(bonus)
Easy Beauty
Chloé Cooper Jones
2023 Finalist
A spellbinding and brutally honest memoir drawing on art, travel, cultural observation and philosophical scholarship to convey the full experience of life as a disabled person whose view of humanity becomes increasingly compassionate.
A spellbinding and brutally honest memoir drawing on art, travel, cultural observation and philosophical scholarship to convey the full experience of life as a disabled person whose view of humanity becomes increasingly compassionate.
(bonus)
The Man Who Could Move Clouds
Ingrid Rojas Contreras
2023 Finalist
A lyrical personal account that reclaims a family legacy of indigenous practices, beliefs, and narratives to challenge Western notions of history and memory.
A lyrical personal account that reclaims a family legacy of indigenous practices, beliefs, and narratives to challenge Western notions of history and memory.
(bonus)
The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions
Jonathan Rosen
2024 Finalist
An account of the author’s brilliant childhood best friend and fellow student who was diagnosed as schizophrenic before fatally stabbing his girlfriend, a tragedy used to explore mental illness and the history of institutionalization.
An account of the author’s brilliant childhood best friend and fellow student who was diagnosed as schizophrenic before fatally stabbing his girlfriend, a tragedy used to explore mental illness and the history of institutionalization.
(bonus)
The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight
Andrew Leland
2024 Finalist
An emotionally resonant account by an author losing his eyesight from a rare genetic disorder, a memoir that explores the physical and conceptual experience of blindness, and that explains honestly how ableism fueled his reticence to accept his diagnosis.
An emotionally resonant account by an author losing his eyesight from a rare genetic disorder, a memoir that explores the physical and conceptual experience of blindness, and that explains honestly how ableism fueled his reticence to accept his diagnosis.
(bonus)
Fi: A Memoir of My Son
Alexandra Fuller
2025 Finalist
An elegiac meditation on motherhood and grief, written from the rage and pain of losing a child, but in a voice that ultimately resonates with beauty and hard-won acceptance.
An elegiac meditation on motherhood and grief, written from the rage and pain of losing a child, but in a voice that ultimately resonates with beauty and hard-won acceptance.
(bonus)
I Heard Her Call My Name: A Memoir of Transition
Lucy Sante
2025 Finalist
A questioning yet clear-eyed narrative of the author’s journey to become who she is from who she once was, set against a vanished New York City that is profoundly part of her past.
A questioning yet clear-eyed narrative of the author’s journey to become who she is from who she once was, set against a vanished New York City that is profoundly part of her past.