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For distinguished fiction published in book form during the year by an American author, preferably dealing with American life, Ten thousand dollars ($10,000).

The Road, by Cormac McCarthy (Alfred A. Knopf)

Lee Bollinger and Sonny Mehta

Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger (left) presents Sonny Mehta (accepting for Cormac McCarthy) with the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction.

Winning Work

The Road

A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food--and each other.

The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, "each the other's world entire," are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.

(From the book jacket)

 

Biography

Cormac McCarthy is the author of nine previous novels including No Country for Old Men (2005), All the Pretty Horses (1992), The Crossing (1994), and Blood Meridian (1985). Among his honors are the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Finalists

Nominated as finalists in Fiction in 2007:

The Jury

Catharine R. Stimpson

University Professor and dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Science

David Ulin

book editor

Gail Caldwell(chair )*

chief book reviewer

Winners in Fiction

2007 Prize Winners

The Wall Street Journal

For its creative and comprehensive probe into backdated stock options for business executives that triggered investigations, the ouster of top officials and widespread change in corporate America.

Staff

For its skillful and tenacious coverage of a family missing in the Oregon mountains, telling the tragic story both in print and online.