2009 Pulitzer Prize Winners Announced

The Pulitzer Prize is regarded as the highest national honor in newspaper journalism, literary achievement and musical composition. It was established by Joseph Pulitzer. The awards are administered by Columbia University in New York City.

The 2009 Pulitzer Prize Winners and Finalists are:

JOURNALISM:

Public Service - Las Vegas Sun (w); New York Times; St. Petersburg Times

Breaking News Reporting - The New York Times Staff (w); Houston Chronicle Staff; St. Louis Post-Dispatch Staff

Investigative Reporting - David Barstow of The New York Times (w); Paul Pringle of the Los Angeles Times; Susanne Rust and Meg Kissinger of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Explanatory Reporting - Bettina Boxall and Julie Cart of the Los Angeles Times (w); Adam Liptak of the New York Times; Robert O’Harrow Jr. and Brady Dennis of The Washington Post

Local Reporting - Detroit Free Press Staff (w) and Ryan Gabrielson and Paul Giblin of the East Valley Tribune, Mesa, AZ (w, tie); Brendan McCarthy, Michael DeMocker and Ryan Smith of The Times Picayune, New Orleans, LA

National Reporting - St. Petersburg Times Staff (w); Amy Goldstein and Dana Priest of The Washington Post; John Shiffman, John Sullivan and Tom Avril of The Philadelphia Inquirer

International Reporting - The New York Times Staff (w); Rukmini Callimachi of Associated Press; Staff of The Washington Post

Feature Writing - Lane DeGregory of the St. Petersburg Times (w); John Barry of St. Petersburg Times; Amy Ellis Nutt of The Star-Ledger, Newark, NJ; Diane Suchetka of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, OH

Commentary - Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post (w); Regina Brett of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, OH; Paul Krugman of The New York Times

Criticism - Holland Cotter of The New York Times (w); Inga Saffron of The Philadelphia Inquirer; Sebastian Smee of The Boston Globe

Editorial Writing - Mark Mahoney of The Post-Star, Glens Falls, NY (w); Charles Lane of The Washington Post; John McCormick, Marie Dillon and Bruce Dold of Chicago Tribune

Editorial Cartooning - Steve Breen of The San Diego Union-Tribune (w); Mike Thompson of Detroit Free Press; Matt Wuerker of Politico

Breaking News Photography - Patrick Farrell of The Miami Herald (w); Carolyn Cole of Los Angeles Times; Staff of Associated Press

Feature Photography - Damon Winter of The New York Times (w); Carol Guzy of The Washington Post; Sonya Hebert of The Dallas Morning News

LETTERS, DRAMA and MUSIC:

Fiction - Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (Random House) (w); The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich (HarperCollins); All Souls by Christine Schutt (Harcourt)

Drama - Ruined by Lynn Nottage (w); Becky Shaw by Gina Gionfriddo; In The Heights by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegría Hudes

History - The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed (W.W. Norton & Company) (w); The Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust (Alfred A. Knopf); The Liberal Hour: Washington and the Politics of Change in the 1960s by G. Calvin Mackenzie and Robert Weisbrot (The Penguin Press)

Biography - American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham (Random House) (w); Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt by H.W. Brands (Doubleday); The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century by Steve Coll (The Penguin Press)

Poetry - The Shadow of Sirius by W.S. Merwin (Copper Canyon Press)(w); Watching the Spring Festival by Frank Bidart (Farrar, Straus and Giroux); What Love Comes To: New & Selected Poems by Ruth Stone (Copper Canyon Press)

General Nonfiction - Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon (Doubleday) (w); Gandhi and Churchill: The Epic Rivalry That Destroyed an Empire and Forged Our Age by Arthur Herman (Bantam Books); The Bitter Road to Freedom: A New History of the Liberation of Europe by William I. Hitchcock (Free Press)

Music - Double Sextet by Steve Reich, premiered March 26, 2008 in Richmond, VA (Boosey & Hawkes) (w); 7 Etudes for Solo Piano by Don Byron (nottuskegeelike music/BMI); Brion by Harold Meltzer (Urban Scrawl Music Company)