NEW YORK — “Next to Normal,” a musical about the complexity and heartbreak of a woman’s mental illness and its affect on her family, has won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for drama.
“The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt,” by T.J. Stiles won the biography prize, and “Tinkers,” by Paul Harding, won the fiction award.
A posthumous Special Citation was given to Hank Williams for his “craftsmanship as a songwriter who expressed universal feelings with poignant simplicity and played a pivotal role in transforming country music into a major musical and cultural force in American life.”
Other winners announced by Columbia University today were: “Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World,” by Liaquat Ahamed, for history; “Versed,” by Rae Armantrout, for poetry; “The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy,” by David E. Hoffman for general nonfiction; and Violin Concerto by Jennifer Higdon, won the music prize.
The Herald Courier of Bristol, Va., won the Pulitzer Prize for public service for reporting on the mismanagement of natural gas royalties owed to thousands of landowners in Virginia.
The Washington Post received four Pulitzers — for international reporting, feature writing, commentary and criticism. The New York Times won two — for national reporting and explanatory reporting.
ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative-journalism service, won one of two Pulitzers awarded for investigative reporting for a story on the life-and-death decisions made by doctors at a New Orleans hospital during Hurricane Katrina. The story was a collaboration with The New York Times Magazine.
The other prize for investigative reporting went to the Philadelphia Daily News for exposing a rogue police narcotics squad.
The Seattle Times staff was honored in the breaking news category for its coverage of the shooting deaths of four police officers in a coffee shop.
The Pulitzer for local reporting went to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for a series of stories on fraud and abuse in a child-care program for poor working parents.
The Dallas Morning News won for editorial writing.
Mark Fiore, whose animated cartoons appear on the San Francisco Chronicle Web site, SFGate.com, was honored for editorial cartooning.
The Des Moines Register won for breaking-news photography for capturing a rescuer trying to save a woman trapped beneath a dam, and the Denver Post was honored for feature photography for a portrait of a teenager who joined the Army at the height of insurgent violence in Iraq.
The Pulitzers are the most prestigious awards in journalism and are given out annually by Columbia University on the recommendation of a board of distinguished journalists and others. Each award carries a $10,000 prize except for the public service award, which is a gold medal.
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