News & Reviews

WORD: Robinson lands big prize for Gilead; Pulitzer Board strikes out on journalism award

by BPM Smith

Marilynne Robinson made a minor splash on the book scene after releasing her first novel in twenty years via publisher Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Now Robinson’s novel Gilead has created major waves after winning the 2005 Pulitzer Prize in fiction. Meanwhile, the Pulitzer Board struck out on its journalism award winners when it fanned the San Francisco Chronicle’s BALCO coverage.

Columbia University announced last week that Robinson’s novel, a religious-themed narrative told in letters from an Iowa preacher to his young son, topped finalists War Trash by Ha Jin and An Unfinished Season by Ward Just. According to the Pulitzer Prize Board, Gilead won the award for distinguished fiction by an American author dealing with American life. Robinson will pick up her award and $10,000 at a luncheon on May 23 at Columbia University.

Panteon title War Trash recently won the Penn/Faulkner Award for its portrayal of Chinese POWs held by Americans during the Korean War. An Unfinished Season, from Houghton Mifflin, is a cultural and political exploration set in 1950’s Chicago, told from the perspective of a tabloid newspaper copy boy.

The win for 61-year-old Robinson continues the Pulitzer Prize Board’s tradition of naming older, long-established authors its winners. Robinson waited more than 20 years between novels, with her last one, Housekeeping, published back in 1981. She meanwhile had published two non-fiction books.

Among the many Pulitzer Awards going to media outlets, winners under the categories of breaking news and investigative reporting went to those who uncovered sexual scandals.

The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., staff won a Pulitzer in breaking news reporting for their coverage of a New Jersey governor’s adultery with a male lover. The investigative reporting award went to Williamette Week reporter Nigel Naquiss, for exposing a former governor’s sexual abuse of a 14 year-old girl. Under beat reporting, Amy Dockser Marcus of The Wall Street Journal won for her coverage of cancer survivors.

Meanwhile, San Francisco Chronicle reporters - who broke last year’s widely reported BALCO scandal and uncovered grand jury testimony revealing that baseball stars including Barry Bonds had used steroids - were not even finalists, according to the Pulitzer Board.

Still, The Wall Street Journal as well as media across the globe continue citing the San Francisco Chronicle in their BALCO-related articles because they cannot confirm the information independently.

San Francisco Chronicle staffer Deanne Fitzmaurice won a Pulitzer in feature photography, for her photo essay on an Oakland hospital’s efforts to rehabilitate an Iraqi boy maimed in an explosion. She is reportedly the paper’s first Pulitzer winner since 1996.

Contacts in the media industry informed WORD’N’BASS.com that other San Francisco Chronicle nominees included staff writers Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada, who covered the BALCO scandal and reported on grand jury testimony that implicated Bonds and other sports figures. Staff writer Kevin Fagan was also nominated for his coverage of homelessness in San Francisco.

 

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