Skip to main content
The 2023 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Fiction
For distinguished fiction published during the year by an American author, preferably dealing with American life, Fifteen thousand dollars ($15,000).

Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver (Harper)

A masterful recasting of “David Copperfield,” narrated by an Appalachian boy whose wise, unwavering voice relates his encounters with poverty, addiction, institutional failures and moral collapse–and his efforts to conquer them.
Barbara Kingsolver accepts a 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction from Columbia University President Emeritus Lee Bollinger. (Diane Bondareff/The Pulitzer Prizes)

Winning Work

Demon Copperhead

By

Barbara Kingsolver

 

A NEW YORK TIMES "TEN BEST BOOKS OF 2022"

An Oprah’s Book Club Selection • An Instant New York Times Bestseller • An Instant Wall Street Journal Bestseller • A #1 Washington Post Bestseller 

"Demon is a voice for the ages—akin to Huck Finn or Holden Caulfield—only even more resilient.” —Beth Macy, author of Dopesick

"May be the best novel of 2022. . . . Equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking, this is the story of an irrepressible boy nobody wants, but readers will love.” (Ron Charles, Washington Post)

From the acclaimed author of The Poisonwood Bible and The Bean Trees, a brilliant novel that enthralls, compels, and captures the heart as it evokes a young hero’s unforgettable journey to maturity

Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.

Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens’ anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can’t imagine leaving behind.

Biography

Barbara Kingsolver is the author of ten bestselling works of fiction, including the novels Unsheltered, Flight Behavior, The Lacuna, The Poisonwood Bible, Animal Dreams, and The Bean Trees, as well as books of poetry, essays, and creative nonfiction. Her work of narrative nonfiction is the influential bestseller Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. Kingsolver’s work has been translated into more than twenty languages and has earned literary awards and a devoted readership at home and abroad. She was awarded the National Humanities Medal, our country’s highest honor for service through the arts, as well as the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for the body of her work. She lives with her family on a farm in southern Appalachia. 

Finalists

Nominated as finalists in Fiction in 2023:

Vauhini Vara

About a tech genius turned exile and the daughter who is struggling to break free of his hold, a complicated family saga that is also an ambitious novel exploring topics such as climate change and the legacy of colonialism in a vibrant and surprisingly humorous voice.

The Jury

Sabina Murray(Chair)

Professor of English, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Brit Bennett

Author, Brooklyn, N.Y.

Phil Klay

Professor of the Practice, English, Fairfield University

Héctor Tobar

Associate Professor of English, Chicano/Latino Studies and Literary Journalism, University of California, Irvine

Colson Whitehead*

Author, New York, N.Y.

Winners in Fiction

2022

Joshua Cohen

A mordant, linguistically deft historical novel about the ambiguities of the Jewish-American experience, presenting ideas and disputes as volatile as its tightly-wound plot.
2021

Louise Erdrich

A majestic, polyphonic novel about a community’s efforts to halt the proposed displacement and elimination of several Native American tribes in the 1950s, rendered with dexterity and imagination.
2020

Colson Whitehead

A spare and devastating exploration of abuse at a reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida that is ultimately a powerful tale of human perseverance, dignity and redemption.
2019

Richard Powers

An ingeniously structured narrative that branches and canopies like the trees at the core of the story whose wonder and connectivity echo those of the humans living amongst them.
See All Fiction

2023 Prize Winners

Commentary

Kyle Whitmire of AL.com, Birmingham

For measured and persuasive columns that document how Alabama's Confederate heritage still colors the present with racism and exclusion, told through tours of its first capital, its mansions and monuments–and through the history that has been omitted.
Investigative Reporting

Staff of The Wall Street Journal

For sharp accountability reporting on financial conflicts of interest among officials at 50 federal agencies, revealing those who bought and sold stocks they regulated and other ethical violations by individuals charged with safeguarding the public’s interest.
See All 2023 Winners