On May 5 the announcement came of Pulitzer Prizes. Two books largely dealing with the Civil War, won awards. The winner for Fiction was James by Percival Everett (Doubleday). The book tells the story of James, an enslaved Black man who is based on the character Jim from Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn.
Foe the History Award, Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War by Edda L. Fields-Black won. Harriet Tubman has been the focus of both popular and scholarly biographies over the last three decades, but this is an attempt to tell the story of Tubman’s involvement in the Sea Islands during the Civil War.
According to the Pulitzer Committee, James is “An accomplished reconsideration of ‘Huckleberry Finn’ that gives agency to Jim to illustrate the absurdity of racial supremacy and provide a new take on the search for family and freedom.” Several months ago, the book won the National Book Award.
Combee is “A richly-textured and revelatory account of a slave rebellion that brought 756 enslaved people to freedom in a single day, weaving military strategy and family history with the transition from bondage to freedom,” according to the Pulitzer Committee.
There were also Civil War-related finalists. For Drama, Oh, Mary!, by Cole Escola was a finalist. This bizarre comedy is a look at the Lincoln family. Plantation Goods: A Material History of American Slavery, by Seth Rockman (University of Chicago Press) was a finalist for History.
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