Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 105 years, how to witness the century-old classics of American literature?

April 10 was the birth of the American newspaper magnate Joseph Pulitzer (1847-1911). He not only single-handedly helped the United States establish a modern newspaper system, but also created the "Academy Award of Journalism", the Pulitzer Prize, which was created according to his will, which played a great role in promoting the creation of fictional literature.

Joseph Pulitzer

Joseph Pulitzer

April 10, 1847 - October 29, 1911

Founded in 1917, the Pulitzer Prize is selected annually by a selection committee of 16 people, including the president of Columbia University, and includes two categories: the Journalism Prize and the Art Prize. Among them, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is one of the oldest and most famous literary awards in the United States, and its importance is no less important than the most important international literary awards such as the Booker Prize and the Nobel Prize in Literature.

In 1948, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction changed to its current English name: Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and began to include short story anthologies in the list of winners. The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction's winning writers and works also distinguish them from other awards:

1

The pulitzer prize for fiction must be a U.S. citizen.

2

The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction will also be vacant. It's not because none of the books deserve the award, but because none of the shortlisted books have received an overwhelming majority of votes.

3

The works of many writers who have won pulitzer prizes are often not their most acclaimed works. For example, William Faulkner's masterpiece is "Noise and Commotion", but his two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning works, Fables and The Predator, are not well known.

Browse through the award-winning works from 1917 to the present, and you can see the development of American literature across 100 years: Sinclair Lewis, Pearl Buck, Hemingway, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, Saul Bellow... Behind these familiar names is how they see American society, what kind of American spirit is expressed in their works, and provide a long and solid reference for where American literature will go in the future.

1910-1920s

Anti-urban phenomenon in a materialistic society

— Sinclair Lewis, "Arrow Smith"

In 1912, Harriet Monroe founded poetry magazine in Chicago, which published the publications of Ezra Pound, T. Thompson, and T. Thompson. S. Eliot, E. The works of many poets, such as E. Cummings, marked the beginning of Modernist american poetry. In 1919, Sherwood Anderson published "Ohio, Winsburg," which established his place in american literature. Faulkner called him "the father of american writers of our generation," and many see him as a pioneer of modern American literature. As a result, modern American literature gradually sprouted.

▲ Writer Sherwood Anderson VS "Ohio, Winsburg"

By the 1920s, American society had just experienced the baptism of World War I, and people enjoyed the scientific and technological achievements of the "Gilded Age", liberated from housework and released vitality in the rhythm of jazz; the new rich class increased sharply, they lived in luxury, lying drunk and dreaming of death in huge material wealth.

At this time, the American literary circle realized the contradictions between the highly developed capitalist society and people's spiritual world, and the "anti-urban phenomenon" that was far from the material and the real society began to appear in literary works. The winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1926 was Sinclair Lewis, whose work Arrowsmith reflected the intellectual satire of the hypocrisy of American society at the time.

▲ Writer Sinclair Lewis VS Arrowsmith

In the novel, Lewis portrays an idealistic doctor who is full of science, Martin Arrowsmith. Arrow Smith was not only a doctor, but also an honest and honest scientific warrior. After graduation, he worked at the Institute of Biology, during which time he saw the hypocrisy of the American medical community and the spiritual emptiness of people from all walks of life. Eventually, unwilling to compromise with society's materialism and hypocrisy, Arrowsmith left his wife, children, and his laboratory in New York to devote the rest of his life to scientific ideals.

Arrowsmith is Sinclair Lewis's third work and his "turnaround." The image of an upright, idealistic doctor portrayed in the novel, as well as a sharp satire on American society, calmed the long-standing criticism of Lewis's lack of "spiritual endowment" and awarded Arrowsmith "Lewis's best novel".

Unexpectedly, when the book won the Pulitzer Prize, Lewis refused to accept it. With his actions, he vividly interpreted the anti-urban phenomenon in 20th-century American literature.

1930s-1940s

Left-wing literature during the Great Depression

—John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

From the 1930s onwards, the United States entered the Great Depression due to the economic crisis. William Manchester wrote about 1932 as "the worst year" in his account of American society—by a time when the Great Depression had lasted for three full years, tens of millions of Americans were on the run to find jobs, and large numbers of American farmers had to flee their homes and travel miles in search of new homes.

▲ Photos of the "Great Depression" period in the United States

It was during this period that the ranks of left-wing writers in the United States expanded rapidly. Dos Pazos and John Steinbeck are among the representative writers, and under the influence of left-wing ideas, they expressed their protest against American society with novels such as the "America" trilogy and "Grapes of Wrath".

Grapes of Wrath is Steinbeck's masterpiece, written in 1939 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1940. Grapes of Wrath is based on true events: Between 1930 and 1936, north America was hit by a series of sandstorms, millions of acres of land were deserted, and hundreds of people were uprooted.

Writer John Steinbeck VS Grapes of Wrath

The protagonist of the novel, Jodd's family, is one of the victims of the disaster. As the land was invaded by a sandstorm, they had to follow Route 66 all the way west to California, a paradise where they could make a living by picking grapes. On this long journey of three thousand kilometers, they experienced many incredible things. Some things are cruel and painful, but some encounters are full of warmth, which makes them rekindle their confidence in living.

It is a deeply moving saga that also plays an important role in reflecting the temperament of American literature in the 1940s. The literary research treatise Facing the Abyss: American Literature and Culture in the 1940s argues that literature was crucial in the United States of the 1940s. At the time, Americans, regardless of class or background, seemed to be eagerly engaged in novels, plays, and poems in search of a recapture of their personal experience. The "rage" in the title, Grapes of Wrath, is an outcry against the unjust institutions that led to poverty, and this anger is present in almost every American during the Great Depression. The New York Times believes that "Grapes of Wrath" is a record of the times and a monument to the indomitable will of the people.

1950s

The absence of the Beats in Pulitzer

After World War II, a loosely banded collection of young poets and writers in the United States became known as the Beat Generation. The name was first coined by the writer Jack Kerouac around 1948, and his masterpiece "On the Road" depicts the absurd life experiences of a group of young people, reflecting the spiritual emptiness and muddled state of postwar American youth. Alan Ginsburg's Howling and William Burroughs' Naked Lunch are also representatives of Beat literature.

★

▲ "Beat School" literary masterpiece

"On the Road", "Howl", "Nude Lunch"

Bizarrely, looking back at the Pulitzer Prize-winning work of the 1950s, it is difficult to find traces of "Beat" writers, which may have something to do with their abandonment of the academic tradition of literature. However, the "Beat" literature links modernism and postmodernism, and its influence on the development of American literature and social thought is still quite weighty.

1960s

The appeal and struggle of minority and women's literature

—Harper Lee, "To Kill a Mockingbird"

As far as American literature and culture studies are concerned, the 1960s generally cover the years 1963 to 1973, beginning with the beatles' popularity and the assassination of President Kennedy, and finally ending the Vietnam War and american women's access to abortion rights. American literature of this period, inheriting the "Beat Generation"'s rebellion against conservative culture, shows both the absurdity and ridicule of black humor and the demands and struggles of minority and women's literature, and Harper Lee's "Killing a Mockingbird" is a classic novel that expresses this theme, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961.

▲ Writer Harper Lee VS "Kill a Mockingbird"

To Kill a Mockingbird is about a young black man named Tom Robinson who was falsely accused and arrested for rape. Although Tom's defense attorney, Atticus Finch, found evidence that he was not a rapist, it could not stop the jury from concluding guilt. In the end, Tom, who was burdened with the sin of delusion, unfortunately died under the gunfire.

The novel's title is derived from a proverb in the American South: "Killing a mockingbird is a sin." The title retains only the first half of the sentence, which looks like a statement of an event, but hides the power of indictment in the calm. In addition to singing moving songs, the robins do not do anything to hurt others, do not destroy flowers and plants, do not destroy barns, and only sing to please the listeners. Therefore, killing such a harmless creature is a sin, a meaningless slaughter.

▲ Poster of the 1962 movie "Kill a Mockingbird"

There are two wronged "robins" in the novel, One is Bull Radley and the other is Tom Robinson, a black man. The former was a victim of rumors of neighborhood prejudice, while the latter was a victim of racial discrimination in American society at the time. The novel caused a great reaction after its publication, and even promoted the development of the civil rights movement in the United States: four years after the novel was published, the United States passed the Citizenship Act in 1964, marking the victory of civil rights activists.

1970s-1980s

The spiritual plight of the middle class

- Saul Bellow, "Humboldt's Gift"

With the subsidence of the civil rights movement and the end of the Vietnam War, in the early 1970s, the U.S. economy once again developed rapidly, and science and technology have advanced by leaps and bounds; however, the side effects of economic development are that inflation rates have become higher, and Americans during the period of stagnation, especially the middle class, have fallen into mental anxiety caused by different factors such as income, race, age, and gender differences, and the relationship between man and society, man and nature, and man and self has been distorted.

American literature of this period is characterized by concentrated historical metaphors and literary irony. For example, in the 1978 Pulitzer Prize-winning "John Cheever Short Stories Collection", a large number of fables show the spiritual confusion of middle-class protagonists. The 1976 Pulitzer Prize-winning "Humboldt's Gift" is the satire of the author Saul Bellow on the situation in which people were in a spiritual crisis in the "abundant society" of the United States in the 70s.

John Cheever's Short Stories VS Humboldt's Gift

"Humboldt's Gift" gradually unfolds with the protagonist and narrator Sitlin's recollection of the past: Charlie Sitling, a middle-aged man who became famous as a writer, began to recall his deceased friend Humboldt Fleicher after a period of human failure. Humboldt was a poet, mentor, and close friend of his predecessors, teaching Sitlin the power of art and keeping him true to his creative spirit. However, Sitrin, who had been promoted and developed by Humboldt, did not lend a helping hand when Humboldt was suffering from poverty. In the end, he also fell into a double material and spiritual bankruptcy, but with the help of Humboldt's "gift" left to him, a script outline, he got out of the financial crisis.

Humboldt's Gift is a central thread around the thoughts and fates of humboldt and sitling writers. Humboldt had the romantic temperament of a poet, who fantasized about transforming the world with art. Sitlin was a follower of Humboldt, and although less talented than his mentor, he flourished in material society. Both of the novel's protagonists have prototypes in the real world: Humboldt is based on Bellow's closest friend, the novelist Isaac Rosenfeld, and the poet Delmo Schwartz; Sitlin is more like Bellow himself.

Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow

1915—2005

Saul Bellow's works include Henderson the Rain King, Hersog, Mr. Symler's Planet, Humboldt's Gift, etc., most of which reveal the spiritual distress of middle-class intellectuals. In "Humboldt's Gift", Bellow puts forward a philosophical insight through Humboldt and Sitlin, two figures with historical continuity: the destruction of spiritual civilization by contemporary material civilization will lead to the loss of human nature, the loss of faith, and the sinking of society.

1990s

Exploring self-worth in the information society

—Mike Cunningham, "All the Time"

After the 1990s, with the advent of the new economy represented by the information industry and the soaring stock market, the acceleration of economic globalization, the US economy flourished; however, at the same time, the gap between the rich and the poor in the United States was widening day by day, and the social distribution inequality was serious.

In order to explore the existence value of the human individual in a rapidly developing society, the American novel of this period is known for its interpretation of cultural memory. When writers review the classic works in British and American literature, they are accompanied by a profound analysis of historical development, civilization progress, and the current situation of human existence. The 1997 Pulitzer Prize-winning American Pastoral is the work of Philip Ross, in which he uses the allusion to Adam and Eve's expulsion from the Garden of Eden to elicit a decent Jewish entrepreneur's American dream of disillusionment; in the 1998 award-winning Moments, author Mike Cunningham chose Virginia Woolf's Lady Dalloway as a literary thread connecting three narrative time and space.

▲ "American Pastoral" VS "All the Time"

By depicting the day of Three Women, Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Brown, and Clarissa, All Times constructs a work about human loss, despair, fear, longing, and love:

Virginia Woolf, a writer of the 1920s, was suffering from severe mental illness, but did not forget to conceive her new work, Mrs. Dalloway;

Mrs. Brown, an American housewife in the 1950s, was a loyal reader of Mrs. Dalloway and longed for an outlet for a dull life;

Clarissa, a New York editor in the 1990s, was called "Mrs. Dalloway" by poet friend Thomas. She hosts a party for Thomas, but witnesses Thomas committing suicide by jumping off a building that night.

Michael Cunningham placed three women of different eras and different families in the same temporal dimension, creating three narrative spaces in a parallel narrative. The psychological conscious activities of the characters unfold in their respective spaces, and they have a subtle connection with each other, showing people's eternal pursuit of the value of their own existence.

▲ Stills from the movie "All the Time"

The novel was both literarily and commercially sought after, making it onto the New York Times bestseller list and being adapted into a film of the same name. Nicole Kidman won the 75th Academy Award for Best Actress for the film. As for why the novel has gained widespread popularity in American society, the Publishers Weekly review may provide an explanation:

"It convinces the reader that it is possible to deeply share ideas in great works." Literature can show people how to live and what to ask for. ”

After 2000

Identity construction under the tide of immigrants

—Jeffrey Eugenides, "Neutral"

With the impact of colonial rule, immigration, and globalization, the phenomenon of ethnic dispersion in American society has become increasingly prominent, and the topic of the identity of the diaspora has rapidly evolved into a core issue involving many fields of humanities and social sciences. Identity building has also become an important theme in contemporary literature, especially in minority and diaspora literature.

Jeffrey Eugenides's Neutral was born out of this literary trend. The protagonist of the novel, Stephanides, is of Greek descent and was born as a baby girl in January 1960, but at the age of 14, he discovers in an emergency room that he is originally a boy and is intersex.

Jeffrey Eugenides,"Neutral"

Stephanides wanted to be a man in her heart, but doctors suggested that she be resexualized into a woman based on her upbringing. So, at the age of 14, he ran away. "She" became "he" - Carl, cut her hair short, and hitchhiked to San Francisco to find a new way out...

"Neutral" is not entirely about the self-exploration of an intersex person. Author Jeffrey Eugenides links the fate of the protagonist to the history of the entire family, using the story of his grandparents under the Greek-Turkish War as a reference to the efforts of the diaspora to construct identities in the vision of the diaspora. The portrayal of the fate of three generations of grandchildren gives the novel an epic temperament. In 2003, Neutral won Eugenides a Pulitzer Prize.

*The pictures in this article are from the network

Read Recommended

Land of Dreams: From Dream to Rhapsody, Five Hundred Years of the American Spirit

Author: Kurt Anderson

Publisher: CITIC Publishing House

Translator: Marshal Cui/Zhang Bo

In 1517, Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses spread, Protestantism was born, and religious power was delegated to every ordinary person. This is the prototype of the American spirit long before the founding of the United States: everyone has the right to believe what he believes, no matter what the experts say. Individualism combined with a pious zeal, the entertainment industry seeped into everything, and everything slowly burned over the course of centuries.

Kurt Anderson, a well-known American media personality and novelist, begins with the 2016 U.S. presidential election and attempts to analyze why fake news is so accepted by Americans in the post-truth era when "fantasy is more real than reality" by recounting the development of the American spirit over the past five centuries.

To Kill a Mockingbird

Author: Harper Lee

Publisher: Yilin Publishing House

Translator: Li Yuchao

The story takes place in a remote town in the American South where racial prejudice is deep. Lawyer Atticus Finch lives with his two children who have lost their mothers at an early age. He told the children not to fight the robin because it didn't harm humans. Finch was tasked with defending Tom Robinson, a black man accused of beating and raping white men. After an in-depth investigation, he proved in court that Robinson had been crippled with his left hand since childhood, and asked the court to acquit him, but was opposed by the court and jury, which was deeply racially prejudiced. Robinson is still convicted. Finch reassures him not to lose faith, but Robinson is shot dead by the police while on the way to escort him.

To Kill a Mockingbird is a recognized classic of American literature, but its significance in the field of education has pushed its borders and become one of the most famous coming-of-age novels in the world.

《To Kill A Mockingbird》

Kill a mockingbird

By Harper Lee

Publisher: Arrow Books

The work tells the story of the tragedy of racial prejudice in the american southern hinterland and the valuable qualities of lawyer Atticus Finch who still clings to heroism in the face of blindness and violent hatred. "To Kill a Mockingbird" has a huge influence in the Western world, not only winning the Pulitzer Prize, but also being a must-read book in American primary and secondary schools. In a recent poll, it even overwhelmed the Bible as the "most revealing book."

"Neutral"

Author: Jeffrey Eugenides

Publisher: Shanghai Translation Publishing House

Translator: Lord Wan/Ye Zun

It's an epic tome set against the backdrop of three generations of a Greek family who fled from a small village in Asia Minor overlooking Mount Olympus to the smoky City of Detroit. After a racial riot in 1967, the protagonist's family ended up in a suburb of Michigan called Gros Point. The third generation of the family is the young Kaliopa, who found that her physical development was much slower than that of other girls. An accident solves the mystery of Kalioppa's body, "Kaliopa" becomes "Karl", at this time, the grandparents' more distant family secrets are slowly revealed...

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