Although I have yet to read Percival Everett’s James, I’m totally intrigued by the premise. Set in the antebellum America South, James is a reimagining of Mark Twain’s classic The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, as told by the Twain character Jim. It’s way past time that Jim gets his own story!

On May 5, 2025 Percival Everett and James won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Not Historical Fiction, but Fiction.

Which made me wonder…how many other works of historical fiction (defined today as works written about something occurring fifty or more years in the past) have won the Pulitzer Prize?

As I found out, it’s a pretty robust list!

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction – 1948 to the present; “For distinguished fiction published in book form during the year by an American author, preferably dealing with American life.” The fiction category includes novels, novellas, novelettes, short stories, and poetry)

2025 – James by Percival Everett II – Antebellum Southern US

2024 – Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips – Reconstruction West Virginia

2023 – Trust by Hernan Diaz – Roaring Twenties and Great Depression

2022 – The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family by Joshua Cohen – 1950’s New York

2021 – The Night Watchman – Louise Erdrich – 1950’s

2020 – The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead – Alternates between the 2010s and the 1960s

2019 – The Overstory by Richard Powers – A multi-generational story beginning in mid-1800s America

2017 – The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead – Antebellum South.

2016 – The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen – 1975

2015 – All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr – WWII

2010 – Tinkers by Paul Harding – Progresses from the 1940’s to the present

2006 – March by Geraldine Brooks – Civil War America

2005 – Gilead by Marilynne Robinson – 1956 Iowa

2004 – The Known World by Edward P. Jones – Antebellum Virginia

2003 – Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides – 20th Century Michigan

2001 – The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon – 1939 New York City

1999 – The Hours by Michael Cunningham – Set in 1923 London, 1949 Los Angeles, and 1999 New York City

1998 – American Pastoral by Philip Roth – 1960’s America

1997 – Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser – 1890’s America

1995 – The Stone Diaries By Carol Shields – 20th Century America

1990 – The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos – 1950’s New York City

1988 – Beloved by Toni Morrison – American Civil War

1986 – Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry – Western American 1870’s

1984 – Ironweed by William Kennedy – American Great Depression

1983 – The Color Purple by Alice Walker – Turn-of-the-Century America

1975 – The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara – American Civil War

1972 – Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner – American West

1968 – The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron – 1831 Virginia

1967 – The Fixer by Bernard Malamud – 1913 Kiev

1966 – Collected Stories by Katherine Anne Porter – Numerous American historical eras

1965 – The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau – A generational saga beginning in early 19th Century America

1963 – The Reivers by William Faulkner – Early 20th century Mississippi & Tennessee

1961 – To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee – American Great Depression

1959 – The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters by Robert Lewis Taylor – 1850’s American West

1958 – A Death in the Family by James Agee – 1915 America

1956 – Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor – American Civil War

1951 – The Town by Conrad Richter – Early 19th-Century Ohio Valley,

1950 – The Way West  by A. B. Guthrie – Early 19th century Oregon Trail

Pulitzer Prize for a Novel – 1918 to 1947. “For distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life.” This category was exclusively for novels.

1939 – The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings – Reconstruction Florida

1937 – Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell – American Civil War and Reconstruction

1934 – Lamb in His Bosom by Caroline Miller – American Antebellum South

1933 – The Store by T. S. Stribling – Reconstruction South

1931 – Years of Grace by Margaret Ayer Barnes – 1890’s America

1928 – The Bridge at San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder – 1714 Peru

1924 – The Able McLaughlins by Margaret Wilson – Civil War Iowa

1921 – The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton – 1870’s New York

1919 – The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington – A generational saga beginning in Reconstruction America

Finis!