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The 2025 Pulitzer Prize winners have been announced at Columbia University (USA), according to the official website of the award.

In the Fiction category, the winner is American writer Percival Everett for his novel “James” (published by Doubleday). He was awarded for “a brilliant reinterpretation of Huckleberry Finn, giving Jim the voice to illustrate the absurdity of racial superiority and to re-explore the pursuit of family and freedom.”

In the General Nonfiction category, American historian Benjamin Nathans received the award for “To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement” (published by Princeton University Press). The organizers praised it as “an exceptionally researched and revealing history of Soviet dissidence — how it was repeatedly suppressed and reborn, populated by a wide circle of courageous individuals dedicated to the fight for threatened freedoms and hard-won rights.”

In the History category, two books share the prize:

• “Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War” (Oxford University Press) by Edda L. Fields-Black — a detailed account of a slave uprising that freed 756 enslaved people in a single day, intertwining military strategy and family history in the transition from slavery to freedom.

• “Native Nations: A Millennium in North America” (Random House) by Kathleen DuVal — a panoramic portrait of Indigenous American nations and communities over a thousand years, offering a vivid and accessible story of resilience, ingenuity, and achievement in the face of conflict and dispossession.

In the Biography category, the winner is Jason Roberts for “Every Living Thing: The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life” (Random House). The book was honored as “a brilliantly written dual biography of Carl Linnaeus and Georges-Louis de Buffon, 18th-century contemporaries who dedicated their lives to uncovering and describing the secrets of nature, shaping our understanding of the world to this day.”

In the Memoir or Autobiography category, the winner is Tessa Hulls with “Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir”(MCD). The illustrated work brings to life three generations of Chinese women — the author, her mother, and grandmother — and explores the trauma passed down through family stories.

In the Poetry category, Marie Howe won for her collection “New and Selected Poems” (W. W. Norton & Company). This body of work, spanning decades, draws from the modern daily experience to uncover truths of our shared loneliness, mortality, and sense of the sacred.

In the Drama category, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins was honored for his play “Purpose”, which explores the complex dynamics and legacy of an upper-middle-class African American family, whose father was a pivotal figure in the Civil Rights Movement. The play was recognized for its masterful blending of drama and comedy, and for examining how different generations define legacy.

The Pulitzer Prize is one of the most prestigious awards in literature, journalism, music, and theater in the United States, established by “yellow press” publisher Joseph Pulitzer. Since 1917, it has been awarded annually on the first Monday of May by the trustees of Columbia University in New York City.