May 8 (UPI) — Columbia University on Monday announced the winners of this year’s Pulitzer Prizes for journalism and arts and letters, with coverage of Ukraine and social issues in the United States taking center stage.
The Associated Press won two Pulitzer Prizes for its coverage of Ukraine, winning the Public Service award for its “courageous reporting from the besieged city of Mariupol,” and Breaking News Photography for its images from the first weeks of Russia’s invasion of the Eastern European country.
The staff of The New York Times also picked up the International Reporting honor for its coverage of Russia’s invasion, including an eight-month investigation into the Bucha massacre.
The Los Angeles Times also won two prizes, with its staff being honored with the Breaking News Reporting award for coverage of a secretly recorded conversation among city officials including racist remarks, as well as follow-up reporting. The paper’s Christina House took the Feature Photography category for her images of a pregnant 22-year-old unhoused woman.
Caroline Kitchener of The Washington Post won the National Reporting award for her coverage detailing the consequences of the conservative-leaning Supreme Court‘s decision last summer to repeal federal protections for abortion.
Eli Saslow of The Post also won the Feature Writing award for penning individual narratives about people’s struggles through the pandemic, homelessness, addiction and inequality that the Pulitzer Prize said collectively formed “a sharply observed portrait of contemporary America.”
Prizes were also awarded Monday in eight arts and letters categories, with the Fiction honor going to two writers — Barbara Kingsolver for her novel Demon Copperhead and Hernan Diaz for Trust.
“Wow. Thanks so much for reading, believing, loving our place and our people,” Kingsolver said in a statement published to her Facebook account. “I’m overwhelmed, I won’t lie — this just doesn’t happen, does it?”
Sanaz Toossi won the Drama prize for her play English, Beverly Gage won the Biography award for G-man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century and Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa won the General Nonfiction category for His Name is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice.