The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction has been awarded for distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life. It originated as the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel, which was awarded between 1918 and 1947.
1910s
1920s
- 1920: no award given
- 1921:The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
- 1922:Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington
- 1923:One of Ours by Willa Cather
- 1924:The Able McLaughlins by Margaret Wilson
- 1925:So Big by Edna Ferber
- 1926:Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis (declined prize)
- 1927:Early Autumn by Louis Bromfield
- 1928:The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
- 1929:Scarlet Sister Mary by Julia Peterkin
1930s
- 1930:Laughing Boy by Oliver La Farge
- 1931:Years of Grace by Margaret Ayer Barnes
- 1932:The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
- 1933:The Store by Thomas Sigismund Stribling
- 1934:Lamb in His Bosom by Caroline Miller
- 1935:Now in November by Josephine Winslow Johnson
- 1936:Honey in the Horn by Harold L. Davis
- 1937:Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
- 1938:The Late George Apley by John Phillips Marquand
- 1939:The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
1940s
- 1940:The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
- 1941: no award given
- 1942:In This Our Life by Ellen Glasgow
- 1943:Dragon’s Teeth by Upton Sinclair
- 1944:Journey in the Dark by Martin Flavin
- 1945:A Bell for Adano by John Hersey
- 1946: no award given
- 1947:All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren
- 1948:Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener
- 1949:Guard of Honor by James Gould Cozzens
1950s
- 1950: The Way West by A. B. Guthrie, Jr.
- 1951: The Town by Conrad Richter
- 1952: The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
- 1953: The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
- 1954: No award given
- 1955: A Fable by William Faulkner
- 1956: Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor
- 1957: No award given
- 1958: A Death in the Family by James Agee
- 1959: The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters by Robert Lewis Taylor
1960s
- 1960:Advise and Consent by Allen Drury
- 1961:To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
- 1962:The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O’Connor
- 1963:The Reivers by William Faulkner
- 1964: No award given
- 1965:The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau
- 1966:The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter by Katherine Anne Porter
- 1967:The Fixer by Bernard Malamud
- 1968:The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron
- 1969:House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday
1970s
- 1970: The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford by Jean Stafford
- 1971: No award given
- 1972: Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
- 1973: The Optimist’s Daughter by Eudora Welty
- 1974: No award given
- 1975: The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
- 1976: Humboldt’s Gift by Saul Bellow
- 1977: No award given
- 1978: Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson
- 1979: The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever
1980s
Entries from this point on include the finalists listed after the winner for each year.
- 1980: The Executioner’s Song by Norman Mailer
- 1981: A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole(posthumous win)
- Godric by Frederick Buechner
- So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell
- 1982: Rabbit Is Rich by John Updike
- A Flag for Sunrise by Robert Stone
- Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
- 1983: The Color Purple by Alice Walker
- Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler
- Rabbis and Wives by Chaim Grade
- 1984: Ironweed by William Kennedy
- Cathedral by Raymond Carver
- The Feud by Thomas Berger
- 1985: Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie
- I Wish This War Were Over by Diana O’Hehir
- Leaving the Land by Douglas Unger
- 1986: Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
- 1987: A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor
- Paradise by Donald Barthelme
- Whites by Norman Rush
- 1988: Beloved by Toni Morrison
- Persian Nights by Diane Johnson
- That Night by Alice McDermott
- 1989: Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler
1990s
- 1990: The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos
- 1991: Rabbit at Rest by John Updike
- Mean Spirit by Linda Hogan
- The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
- 1992: A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
- Jernigan by David Gates
- Lila: An Inquiry into Morals by Robert M. Pirsig
- Mao II by Don DeLillo
- 1993: A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler
- At Weddings and Wakes by Alice McDermott
- Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates
- 1994: The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
- The Collected Stories by Reynolds Price
- Operation Shylock: A Confession by Philip Roth
- 1995: The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
- The Collected Stories by Grace Paley
- What I Lived For by Joyce Carol Oates
- 1996: Independence Day by Richard Ford
- Mr. Ives’ Christmas by Oscar Hijuelos
- Sabbath’s Theater by Philip Roth
- 1997: Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser
- The Manikin by Joanna Scott
- Unlocking the Air and Other Stories by Ursula K. Le Guin
- 1998: American Pastoral by Philip Roth
- Bear and His Daughter: Stories by Robert Stone
- Underworld by Don DeLillo
- 1999: The Hours by Michael Cunningham
2000s
- 2000: Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
- 2001: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
- Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates
- The Quick and the Dead by Joy Williams
- 2002: Empire Falls by Richard Russo
- 2003: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
- Servants of the Map: Stories by Andrea Barrett
- You Are Not a Stranger Here by Adam Haslett
- 2004: The Known World by Edward P. Jones
- American Woman by Susan Choi
- Evidence of Things Unseen by Marianne Wiggins
- 2005: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
- 2006: March by Geraldine Brooks
- The Bright Forever by Lee Martin
- The March by E. L. Doctorow
- 2007: The Road by Cormac McCarthy
- 2008: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
- Shakespeare’s Kitchen by Lore Segal
- Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson
- 2009: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
- All Souls by Christine Schutt
- The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich
2010s
- 2010: Tinkers by Paul Harding
- In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin
- Love in Infant Monkeys by Lydia Millet
- 2011: A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
- The Privileges by Jonathan Dee
- The Surrendered by Chang-rae Lee
Christian Kresall 