The Mexican writer Cristina Rivera Garza won the Pulitzer Prize this Monday for Liliana’s Invincible Summer (Liliana’s invincible summer), a book in which she recounts the femicide of her sister, a 20-year-old student, probably at the hands of her ex-boyfriend, which occurred in July 1990. The jury highlighted the combination of genres in the work. “Memory, investigative journalism from a feminist perspective and poetic biography have been united by a feeling of loss,” said Marjorie Miller, administrator of the board that awards recognition to the best of Journalism, Literature and the Arts. This year’s ceremony dedicated an honorable mention to journalists who have covered the War in Gaza.
The book by Rivera Garza, director of the Creative Writing in Spanish program at the University of Houston, was originally published in Spanish in 2021. In February of last year, its English version, written by the author, was released by the same publishing house, Random House. By the end of 2023, Liliana’s Invincible Summer It was already part of the lists of the best works of the year of The New York Times, Washington Post, The Economist and public radio, NPR, among others. The author, who received the MacArthur grant four years ago, was a finalist for the National Book Award with this same work, which has raised the debate in Mexico on feminicide and sexist violence with elegant prose that, at times, does not even lack humor. This Monday, the book beat the other two finalists in the Memoir or Autobiography category, The Best Mindsby Jonathan Rosen, and The Country of the Blindby Andrew Leland.
The writer originally from Tamaulipas was not the only Latina honored with a Pultizer this Monday. Brandon Som, a Chicano poet with Chinese roots, won in the Poetry category for Guts, where he recounts his multicultural childhood in Phoenix (Arizona) and where he tries to build bridges between various immigrant communities in the United States. In the Biography category, there was a tie between journalist Jonathan Eig’s colossal work on Martin Luther King (King: A Life) and Master Slave Husband Wifeby Ilyon Woo.
A book about the Arab-Israeli conflict has won the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction. Is A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy, where the issue between Israel and Palestine is approached from a different perspective, a traffic accident in which several children are injured, who are taken to different hospitals in Jerusalem and the West Bank, complicating the lives of the victims’ parents. In Drama, Primary Trust, by Eboni Booth, won; and two works about the Civil War triumphed in the Fiction and History categories; Night Watchby Jayne Anne Phillips and Not Right to an Honest Living, by Jacqueline Jones, respectively. He Adage, a slow-tempo saxophone concerto written by New Jersey jazz drummer Tyshawn Sorey won in Music. Greg Tate, an influential black cultural critic who died in 2021 who wrote in The Village Voice and Rolling Stone, He was also honored posthumously.
American Journalism Awards
Marjorie Miller recalled the tough year that journalism experienced in 2023 in the United States. More than 130 newspapers were closed and some 3,000 journalists were laid off in a wave of cuts that continues to punish newsrooms and media organizations well into 2024. This trend has seen the country’s traditional newspapers strengthened. The New York Times and Washington Post They have won three awards each this year. Between them, they also won the three finalists in the international coverage category. Associated Press photographers were honored for giving a face to the US migration crisis. And those of Reuters for their images of the war in the Middle East.
Reporter Hannah Dreier, recipient of a Pulitzer last year, won again for the gray lady of journalism, as the New York newspaper is known. Dreier won the Investigative Journalism award for in-depth coverage that revealed the use of child labor in several industries in the Midwest. Her publications provoked a wave of initiatives in the Legislative Branch of 14 entities to toughen those who employ children.
The newspaper’s reporters were also recognized in International Coverage for their work after the Hamas terrorist attacks of October 7, 2023, which caused the death of 1,200 people and the kidnapping of 235 Israeli citizens. Katie Engelheart won in Reporting, for a story of the legal and personal hell that a family had to go through after the matriarch’s diagnosis of senile dementia. The text was published in the Times in May of last year.
Washington Post, for its part, won the National Coverage category for a special dedicated to the AR-15, the most purchased high-powered rifle in the most armed country in the world. The Post shares the Pulitzer in this category with Reuters and an investigation into the empire of Elon Musk and Tesla. Vladimir Kara Murza’s articles about Vladimir Putin, published by tycoon Jeff Bezos’ newspaper, earned him the Opinion award. David Hoffman, from this same company, was also recognized by his Editorials.
The Pulitzer for Immediacy went to a digital media outlet in the Californian city of Santa Cruz, Lookout, and their coverage of a weekend of storms and floods. This series of heavy rainfall destroyed or damaged about a thousand homes in four coastal towns in the State. The Local Journalism award went to reporters Sarah Conway, of City Bureau, and Trina Reynolds-Tyler, of Invisible Institute, for a series of seven reports on missing persons cases in the Chicago metropolitan area.
