• 1921
  • Novel
    • The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton (Appleton)
• 1926
  • Novel
    • Arrowsmith, by Sinclair Lewis (Harcourt)
• 1928
  • Novel
    • The Bridge of San Luis Rey, by Thornton Wilder (Boni)
  • Drama
    • Strange Interlude, by Eugene O'Neill
• 1937
  • Novel
    • Gone With the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell (Macmillan)
• 1940
  • Novel
    • The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck (Viking)
• 1943
  • Novel
    • Dragon's Teeth, by Upton Sinclair (Viking)
• 1947
  • Novel
    • All the King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren (Harcourt)
• 1948
  • Drama
    • A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams
• 1953
  • Fiction
    • The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway (Scribner)
• 1957
  • Biography
    • Profiles in Courage, by John F. Kennedy (Harper)
• 1961
  • Fiction
    • To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee (Lippincott)
• 1967
  • Fiction
    • The Fixer, by Bernard Malamud (Farrar)
• 1976
  • Fiction
    • Humboldt's Gift, by Saul Bellow (Viking)
• 1982
  • Fiction
    • Rabbit Is Rich, by John Updike (Knopf)
• 1983
  • Fiction
    • The Color Purple, by Alice Walker (Harcourt Brace)
• 1988
  • Fiction
    • Beloved, by Toni Morrison (Alfred A. Knopf)
  • Drama
    • Driving Miss Daisy, by Alfred Uhry
• 1989
  • Fiction
    • Breathing Lessons, by Anne Tyler (Alfred A. Knopf)
• 1991
  • Fiction
    • Rabbit At Rest, by John Updike (Alfred A. Knopf)
• 1998
  • Fiction
    • American Pastoral, by Philip Roth (Houghton Mifflin)
  • General Nonfiction
    • Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, by Jared Diamond (W.W. Norton)
• 2000
  • Fiction
    • Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri (Mariner Books/Houghton Mifflin)
• 2003
  • Fiction
    • Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides (Farrar)

he Transmigration of Souls, by John Adams (Boosey & Hawkes)

• 2004
  • Fiction
    • The Known World, by Edward P. Jones (Amistad/ HarperCollins)
• 2006
  • Fiction
    • March, by Geraldine Brooks (Viking)
• 2007
  • Fiction
    • The Road, by Cormac McCarthy (Alfred A. Knopf)
• 2008
  • Fiction
    • The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz (Riverhead Books)
• 2009
  • Fiction
    • Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout (Random House)
• 2010
  • Fiction
    • Tinkers, by Paul Harding (Bellevue Literary Press)
• 2011
  • Fiction
    • A Visit from the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan (Alfred A.. Knopf)
• 2012
  • Drama
    • Water by the Spoonful, by Quiara Alegría Hudes
  • History
    • Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, by Manning Marable (Viking)
    • The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, by Stephen Greenblatt (W.W. Norton & Company)
• 2015
  • Fiction
    • All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr (Scribner)
  • Biography
    • The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe, by David I. Kertzer (Random House)
  • General Nonfiction
    • The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, by Elizabeth Kolbert (Henry Holt)
    • Fields, by Julia Wolfe (Red Poppy Music/G. Schirmer, Inc.)
• 2016
  • Fiction
    • The Sympathizer, by Viet Thanh Nguyen (Grove Press)
  • Biography
    • Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life, by William Finnegan (Penguin Press)
• 2017
  • Fiction
    • The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday)
• 2018
  • Fiction
    • Less, by Andrew Sean Greer (Lee Boudreaux Books/Little, Brown and Company)
• 2019
  • Fiction
    • The Overstory, by Richard Powers
    • Fairview, by Jackie Sibblies Drury
    • The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke, by Jeffrey C. Stewart (Oxford University Press)
    • Be With, by Forrest Gander (New Directions)
• 2020
  • Fiction
    • The Nickel Boys, by Colson Whitehead (Doubleday)
• 2021
  • The Night Watchman, by Louise Erdrich (Harper)
  • The Hot Wing King, by Katori Hal
  • Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America, by Marcia Chatelain (Liveright/Norton)
  • The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X, by the late Les Payne and Tamara Payne (Liveright/Norton)
  • Postcolonial Love Poem, by Natalie Diaz (Graywolf Press)
• 2022
  • The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family, by Joshua Cohen (New York Review Books)
  • Fat Ham, by James Ijames
  • Covered with Night, by Nicole Eustace (Liveright/Norton)
  • Cuba: An American History, by Ada Ferrer (Scribner)
  • Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist's Memoir of the Jim Crow South, by the late Winfred Rembert as told to Erin I. Kelly (Bloomsbury)
  • frank: sonnets, by Diane Seuss (Graywolf Press)
• 2023
  • Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver (Harper)
  • Trust, by Hernan Diaz (Riverhead Books)
  • English, by Sanaz Toossi
  • Freedom’s Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power, by Jefferson Cowie (Basic Books)
  • G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century, by Beverly Gage (Viking)
  • Stay True, by Hua Hsu (Doubleday)
  • Then the War: And Selected Poems, 2007-2020, by Carl Phillips (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• 2024
  • Night Watch, by Jayne Anne Phillips (Knopf)
  • Primary Trust, by Eboni Booth
  • No Right to an Honest Living: The Struggles of Boston’s Black Workers in the Civil War Era, by Jacqueline Jones (Basic Books)
  • King: A Life, by Jonathan Eig (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
  • Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom, by Ilyon Woo (Simon & Schuster)
  • Liliana’s Invincible Summer: A Sister’s Search for Justice, by Cristina Rivera Garza (Hogarth)
  • Tripas: Poems, by Brandon Som (Georgia Review Books)
• 2025
  • James, by Percival Everett (Doubleday)
  • Purpose, by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
  • Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War, by Edda L. Fields-Black (Oxford University Press)
  • Native Nations: A Millennium in North America, by Kathleen DuVal (Random House)
  • Every Living Thing: The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life, by Jason Roberts (Random House)
  • Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir, by Tessa Hulls (MCD)
  • New and Selected Poems, by Marie Howe (W. W. Norton & Company)