Pulitzer Prize for Biography

Pulitzer Prize for distinguished biography or autobiography by an American author.

Established

1917

Country

United States

Prize

$15,000

Frequency

annual

Biography

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Notable Past Winners

Explore some of the most celebrated books that have won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography, from groundbreaking debuts to literary masterpieces that have shaped contemporary literature.

Pulitzer Prize for Biography

Notable Past Winners

Every Living Thing: The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life

King: A Life

G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century

Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist's Memoir of the Jim Crow South

Award Winners

Every Living Thing: The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life

King: A Life

G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century

Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist's Memoir of the Jim Crow South

The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X

Sontag: Her Life and Work

The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke

Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder

The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between

Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life

The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe

Margaret Fuller: A New American Life

The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo

George F. Kennan: An American Life

Washington: A Life

The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt

American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House

Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father

The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher

American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer

de Kooning: An American Master

More US Awards

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

Pulitzer Prize for History

Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction

Pulitzer Prize for Poetry