2014 Pulitzer Prize goes to ‘The Goldfinch’ by Donna Tartt

Donna Tartt’s bestselling novel “The Goldfinch,” published by Little, Brown, won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for fiction Monday. On Twitter, the Columbia University School of Journalism, which announces the awards, had a slip of the finger in its announcement, at first tweeting that the winner was “The Goldfish.”

In their citation, the judges described “The Goldfinch” as a “beautifully written coming-of-age novel with exquisitely drawn characters that follows a grieving boy’s entanglement with a small famous painting that has eluded destruction, a book that stimulates the mind and touches the heart.”

Finalists in fiction were “The Son” by Philipp Meyer and “The Woman Who Lost Her Soul” by Bob Shacochis. It was a weighty year for the Pulitzer fiction category: the winner and finalists totaled more than 2,000 pages

The Pulitzer Prize winners and finalists are announced simultaneously, without the advance release of a shortlist.

General nonfiction went to “Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation” by Dan Fagin, published by Bantam Books. The story of a small New Jersey town ravaged by industrial pollution and cancer had been well-reviewed but was somewhat under the radar.

The winner in poetry was “3 Sections” by Vijay Seshadri, published by Graywolf Press.

Biography went to “Margaret Fuller: A New American Life” by Megan Marshall, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

The history prize went to “The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832” by Alan Taylor, published by W.W. Norton.

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