The 2012 Pulitzers were just announced. And this year’s winner for fiction is . . .
NO AWARD!
The committee did not award a prize for fiction this year. This has happened before, in 1917, 1920, 1941, 1946, 1954, 1957, 1964, 1971, 1974, and 1977. Usually, the reason for not giving an award is unclear. A fiction jury (made up of three people) recommends three finalists and the Pulitzer Board then makes a final decision. Apparently, this year, they could not get the necessary majority of votes for any one of the three finalists.
Here are the three finalists:
Train Dreams, by Denis Johnson
Swamplandia!, by Karen Russell
The Pale King, by David Foster Wallace
Have you read any of these? Do you plan to? What do you think about the “no award” decision?
UPDATE: Here is an article, originally published in The New Yorker by jury member Michael Cunningham on the no award decision. And here is another article on the issue, originally published in The New York Times, by novelist Ann Patchett.
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow! I am shocked. I didn’t know it was possible to not choose a winner. I wonder if there will be more clarification on the decision.
I hope there will be more information. But I’m hoping it wasn’t “we didn’t feel any of these finalists deserved the award.” That said; I haven’t read any of them.
I think the decision is rather odd. I haven’t read any of the books but do have Swamplandia! to read.
I think it’s odd too. And disappointing. I have heard so much about SWAMPLANDIA! I’ll be awaiting your review.
Of course I haven’t read any of these. That’s so weird that they can’t decide. Seriously? It’s not that hard!
No kidding. Vote, people! Vote! I wonder if the three board members each loved one of the three books too much to vote for the others or if they all hated all three.
I feel like I have to read all three now just to see what happened. Did they drop the ball? Did the Pulitzer judges? I’m not sure. I want to read them. I wrote a whole rant about it on my blog because I think the Pulitzer committee made the right decision if they thought these books didn’t meet the bar set by earlier Pulitzer winners.
I know what you mean, but I’m not sure that I’m up for reading these three. In some ways, I agree with you that “no award” is better than a half-hearted award. But I’m still disappointed.
If I was one of the authors I would feel like I won it anyway.
I hope that’s how they feel. I would feel tempted to be a little sad about it. But I’m sure all the press is helpful.
Ouch. I think I would be really insulted if I were one of those authors. It’s one thing to lose to someone else, it’s another to lose because you weren’t worthy of the award at all! On the flip side, I guess if the committee really felt none of them deserved a Pulitzer it was better to just not award it than to give it to someone they didn’t think deserved it.
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