An Open Letter from the Community
Dear Pulitzer Prizes for Literature,
We, the undersigned, are readers and lovers of literature, undocumented writers, first and second generation immigrants, Native and Black writers, past winners and honorees of Pulitzer prizes and major national awards. We are supremely grateful for the decades’ work the Pulitzer has done to uplift books and authors.
From this place of gratitude, and in hopes to speak to your alignment with the past work you have done, we implore you to update your requirements for the Pulitzer Prize to include the work of our peers who through accidents of geography, of violence perpetrated on our lands, and the personal familial reckonings with survival, have come to have or have been born into a mixed or undocumented status.
We were dismayed to learn, through Javier Zamora’s op-ed piece, It’s Time for the Pulitzer Prize for Literature to Accept Noncitizens, that in the categories of Fiction, Biography, Memoir, Poetry, and General Nonfiction, the Pulitzer prize requires authors to be United States citizens.
Along the way of awarding new work, the Pulitzer has a hand, and an opportunity, in creating a new canon. Works that are honored by a prize and nomination are not only honored momentarily, but they become part of our canonical reading.
We, the undersigned, believe that we have a duty to ask what constitutes the literature of a nation, and in asking this question, we believe it is essential to veer away from the definitions the State provides as to what it thinks constitutes U.S. selfhood.
Whether undocumented writers are writing about the border or not, their voices are quintessentially part of what it means to belong and struggle to belong in this and to this nation.
In an increasingly nativistic world, we look to the Pulitzer to continue to guide us, and we hope you will see your way to changing the prize requirements.
We write to you with dismay and with admiration and hope. Thank you for considering and listening.
Recent Signatories
Elmaz Abinader, author of This House My Bones
Faith Adiele, author of Meeting Faith
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, author of Chain Gang All Stars
Rafael Agustín, author of Illegally Yours
Kaveh Akbar, author of Martyr
Daniel Alarcon, author of At Night We Walk in Circles
Toby Altman, author of Discipline Park
Kali Fajardo-Anstine, author of Woman of Light
Julissa Arce, author of You Sound Like a White Girl
Diana Arterian, author of Playing Monster
Fatimah Asghar, author of When We Were Sisters
Peter Balakian, Pulitzer Prize-winner of Ozone Journal
Carmiel Banasky, author of The Suicide of Claire Bishop
Gustavo Barahona-Lopez, author of Foundation
Michael Barron, books editor at The Rumpus
Samiya Bashir, author of Field Theories; Executive Director of Lambda Literary
Dorothy Bell Ferrer, author of El trasero grande de la muerte
Brit Bennett, author of The Vanishing Half
Laura van den Berg, author of I Hold a Wolf by the Ears
Felicia Berliner, author of Shmutz
Erica Berry, author of Wolfish
Katharine Beutner, author of Killingly
Sin Blaché, co-author of Prophet
Daniel Borzutzky, National Book Award-winning poet and author of Written After a Massacre in the Year 2018
Susan Briante, author of Defacing the Monument
Jamel Brinkley, author of Witness
Kate Brody, author of Rabbit Hole
Sarah Browning, author of Killing Summer
Rachel Ida Buff, A Is for Asylum Seeker
Lina Maria Ferreira Cabeza-Vanegas, author of Don’t Come Back
Alejandra Campoverdi, author of First Gen: A Memoir
Francisco Cantú, author of The Line Becomes a River
Kyle Carrero-Lopez, author of Muscle Memory
Wiley Cash, author of A Land More Kind Than Home
Elaine Castillo, author of America Is Not the Heart and How To Read Now
Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, author of Children of the Land
Adrienne Celt, author of End of the World House
May-lee Chai, author of Useful Phrases for Immigrants: Stories
Jessamine Chan, author of The School for Good Mothers
Vanessa Chan, author of The Storm We Made
Jade Chang, author of The Wangs vs. the World
Rita Chang-Eppig, author of Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea
Jean Chen Ho, author of Fiona and Jane
Kirstin Chen, author of Counterfeit
Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
Laura Chow Reece, author of A Small Apocalypse
Darius Christiansen, author of Deep Blood Thang
Gina Chung, author of Sea Change
Nicole Chung, author of A Living Remedy and All You Can Ever Know
Sandra Cisneros, author of Woman Without Shame, House on Mango Street
Bill Clegg
Matthew Cooperman, author of Wonder About the Anonymous Grizzly
Angie Cruz, author of Dominicana
Jessica Cuello, author of Liar
Jill Damatac, author of Dirty Kitchen
Mo Daviau, author of Every Anxious Wave
Robin Davidson, author of Schmetterling
Iris De Anda, author of Roots of Redemption: You Have No Right to Remain Silent
Cesa de Leon, author of Speaking with Grackles by Soapberry Trees
Yohanca Delgado, Stegner Fellow
Mai Der Vang, author of Yellow Rain
Jaquira Díaz, author of Ordinary Girls
Chelsea Dingman, author of Thaw, through a small ghost, I, Divided
Alice Driver, author of The Life and Death of the American Worker
Firoozeh Dumas, author of Funny in Farsi
Justine Dymond, author of The Emigrant & Other Stories
Dave Eggers, author of The Every
Natalie Eilbert, author of Overland
Patricia Engel, author of The Faraway World
Hannah Ensor, author of Love Dream with Television
Jonathan Escoffery, author of If I Survive You
Sarah Rose Etter, author of Ripe
Melissa Febos, author of Girlhood
Julia Fine, author of The Upstairs House and Maddalena and the Dark
Fernando Flores, author of Tears of the Trufflepig
Gwen Florio, author of Silent Hearts
Carolyn Forché, Pulitzer Prize Finalist and author of In the Lateness of the World
Sarah Fox, author of The First Flag
Jamie Ford, author of The Many Daughters of Afong Moy
Temim Fruchter, author of City of Laughter
Aja Gabel, author of The Ensemble
V. Ganeshananthan, author of Brotherless Night
Cristina Garcia, author of Vanishing Maps
Gabriela Garcia, author of Of Women and Salt
Olga Garcia Echeverria, author of Falling Angels: cuentos y poemas
José García Escobar, translator of Javier Zamora’s Solito and Jesse Leon’s I’m Not Broken
Hafizah Geter, author of The Black Period
Jules Gibbs, author of Snakes and Babies
Eve Gleichman, author of The Very Nice Box
Amanda Goldblatt, author of Hard Mouth
Francisco Goldman, Pulitzer-Prize finalist and author of Monkey Boy
Christopher Gonzalez, author of I’m Not Hungry But I Could Eat
Xochitl Gonzalez, Pulitzer-Prize finalist for Commentary
Sara Gourdarzi, author of The Almond in the Apricot
Alina Grabowski, author of Women and Children First
Reyna Grande, author of The Distance Between Us
Garth Greenwell, author of Cleanness
Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winner and author of Less Is Lost
Stephanie Elizondo Griest, author of All the Agents and Saints and Mexican Enough
Bronwen Griffiths, author of A Bird in the House
Jean Guerrero, author of Crux
Myriam Gurba, author of Creep and Mean
Shalene Gupta, author of The Cycle
Raquel Gutierrez, author of Brown Neon: Essays
Mohsin Hamid, author of Exit West
Jimin Han, author of The Apology
Sean Hanrahan, author of Ghost Signs
Rachel Heng, author of the Great Reclamation
Fei Hernandez, author of fei criatura
Faylita Hicks, author of HoodWitch
Maria Hinojosa, Pulitzer Prize-winner and author of Once I Was You
Erika Hirugami, author of The Aesthetics of Undocumentedness
Paul Hlava Ceballos, author of Banana [ ]
Brandon Hobson, author of Where the Dead Sit Talking
Cathy Park Hong, author of Minor Feelings
Caitlin Horrocks, author of Life Among the Terranauts and The Vexations
Hugh Howey, author of Wool, Sand, Beacon 23
Rose Himber Howse, Stegner Fellow
Hua Hsu, Pulitzer-Prize winner and author of Stay True
Tung-Hui Hu, author of Greenhouses, Lighthouses
Vanessa Hua, author of Forbidden City
Jessica Hoppe, author of First in the Family
Patrycja Humienik, author of Anchor Baby
Sabrina Imbler, author of How Far the Light Reaches
Susan Ito, author of I Would Meet You Anywhere
Mitchell S. Jackson, Pulitzer-Prize winner in Feature Writing for “Twelve Minutes and a Life.”
Mira Jacob, author of Good Talk
Omotara James, author of Song of My Softening
Tania James, author of Loot
Luther Jett, author of Everyone Disappears, Little Wars, and Watchman, What of the Night?
Yenia Jimenez, author of Visualize What You Read
Meng Jin, author of Self-Portrait with Ghost
Chelsey Johnson, author of Stray City
Mat Johnson, author of Invisible Things, Loving Day, and Pym
Saeed Jones, author of Alive at the End of the World
Janine Joseph, author of Decade of the Brain
Mitchell Kaplan, bookseller, Books & Books
Porochista Khakpour, author of Brown Album
Megan Kamalei Kakimoto, author of Every Drop is a Man’s Nightmare
Rachel Khong, author of Goodbye, Vitamin
Christian Kiefer, author of The Heart of It All
Lydia Kiesling, author of Mobility
Crystal Hana Kim, author of The Stone Home
Nancy Jooyoun Kim, author of What We Kept to Ourselves
Alexandra Kleeman, author of Something New Under the Sun
Lisa Ko, author of Memory Piece and The Leavers
Jamil Jan Kochai, author of The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories
Jean Kwok, author of Searching for Sylvie Lee and Girl in Translation
Jennifer Kwon Dobbs, author of Interrogation Room
O. Kwon, author of The Incendiaries
Deborah Landau, author of Soft Targets
Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy
Caroline Leavitt, author of Days of Wonder
Ae Hee Lee, author of Asterism
Raven Leilani, author of Luster
Jesse Leon, author of I’m Not Broken and No estoy roto
Kevin Lichty, author of The Circle That Fits
Jami Nakamura Lin, author of The Night Parade
Katherine Lin, author of You Can’t Stay Here Forever
Joshua Estanislao Lopez, author of We Borrowed Gentleness
Valeria Luiselli, author of Lost Children Archive
Sheryl Luna, author of Magnificent Errors
Christina Lux, author of War Bonds
T Kira Madden, author of Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls
Ruth Madievsky, author of All-Night Pharmacy
Karan Mahajan, author of The Association of Small Bombs
Ricardo Maldonado, author of The Life Assignment
Richard Maribella, author of Brother & Sister Enter the Forest
Jessie Ren Marshall
Nate Marshall, author of Finna
Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, author of The Fact of a Body
Askold Melnyczuk, author of What is Told
Melt, author of There Are Trans People Here
Faith Merino, author of Cormorant Lake
Courtney Milan, author of The Duke Who Didn’t
Isle McElroy, author of People Collide
Hannah Michell, author of Excavations
Chanel Miller, author of Know My Name
Dantiel W. Moniz, author of Milk Blood Heat
Naomi Munaweera, author of Island of a Thousand Mirrors
Briana Muñoz, author of Everything Is Returned to the Soil
Sierra Crane Murdoch, Pulitzer-Prize finalist and author of Yellow Bird: Oil, Murder, and a Woman’s Search for Justice in Indian Country
Matthew Murrey, author of Bulletproof
Marie Myung-Ok Lee, author of The Evening Hero
Sequoia Nagamatsu, author of How High We Go in the Dark
Ann Napolitano, author of Hello Beautiful
Cleyvis Natera, author of Neruda on the Park
Jennifer Nelson, author of Harm Eden
Nadxieli Nieto, Executive Editor and former PEN America awards director
Tomi Obaro, author of Dele Weds Destiny
Achy Obejas, author of Boomerang/Bumerán
Jenny Odell, author of How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy
Alejandra Oliva, author of Rivermouth
Sara Lupita Olivares, author of Migratory Sound
Clara Olivo, author of The Whisper, The Storm and The Light In Between
Tommy Orange, Pulitzer-Prize finalist and author of There There
Ayse Papatya Bucak, author of The Trojan War Museum
Laura Pegram, Kweli Journal
Imani Perry, author of South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation
Carl Phillips, Pulitzer Prize-winner and author of Then the War
Julia Phillips, author of Disappearing Earth
Janel Pineda, author of Lineage of Rain
Lara Prior-Palmer, author of Rough Magic
Ben Prukert, author of The Men Can’t Be Saved
Ayesha Raees, author of Coining a Wishing Tower
Shivanee Ramlochan, author of Everyone Knows I Am a Haunting
Weina Dai Randel, author of Night Angels
Camille Rankine, author of Incorrect Merciful Impulses
Nat Raum, editor in chief, Fifth Wheel Press
Victoria Redel, author of Paradise
Roger Reeves, author of Best Barbarian
José Edmundo Reyes, author of Present Values
Alyssa Reynoso-Morris, author of Plàtanos Are Love
Susan Rich, author of Blue Atlas
Joseph Rios, author of Shadowboxing: poems & impersonations
Lilliam Rivera, author of Never Look Back
Melissa Riveros, author of The Affairs of the Falcons
Jose Antonio Rodriguez, author of House Built on Ashes
Ingrid Rojas Contreras, Pulitzer-Prize finalist and author of The Man Who Could Move Clouds
Joseph Ross, author of Raising King
Enrico Rotelli, author of Nana e io
Lou Rowan, author of A Mystery’s No Problem
Antonio Ruiz-Camacho, author of Barefoot Dogs
Sarah Ruiz-Grossman, author of A Fire So Wild
Janny Sadri-Orafai, author of Malak and Dear Outsiders
Matthew Salesses, author of The Sense of Wonder
Lauren Samblanet, author of like a dog
Erika Sanchez, author of Crying in the Bathroom
Alysia Sawchyn, Editor in Chief at The Rumpus & author of A Fish Growing Lungs
Natalie Scenters-Zapico, author of Lima: Limon
Claire Schwartz, author of Civil Service
Nicole Sealey, author of The Ferguson Report: An Erasure
Diane Seuss, Pulitzer Prize-winner and author of frank: sonnets
Solmaz Sharif, author of Customs
Maya Shanbhag Lang, author of What We Carry
Christina Sharpe, author of Ordinary Notes
Maw Shein Win, author of Storage Unit for the Spirit House
Brandon Shimoda, author of the Grave on the Wall
Leslie Shipman, the Shipman Agency
Michael Shoemaker, author of Leviathan
Grace Shuyi Liew, author of Careen
Matthew Siegel, author of Blood Work
Safiya Sinclair, author of How to Say Babylon
Leora Skolkin-Smith, author of Edges
Danez Smith, author of Don’t Call Us Dead
Maggie Smith, author of You Could Make This Place Beautiful
M. Soehnlein, author of Army of Lovers
Kim Sousa, author of Always a Relic Never a Reliquary
Katherine Standefer, author of Lightning Flowers
Douglas Stuart, author of Shuggie Bain
Pitchaya Sudbanthad, author of Bangkok Wakes to Rain
Eshani Surya, author of the forthcoming Ravishing
Natalia Sylvester, author of Everyone Knows You Go Home
Michael Taeckens, Broadside PR
Morgan Talty, author of Night of the Living Rez
Jenna Tang, translator of Fang Si-Chi’s First Love Paradise
Sarah Thankam Matthews, author of All This Could be Different
Nafissa Thompson-Spires, author of Heads of the Colored People
Jenny Tinghui Zhang, author of Four Treasures of the Sky
Justin Torres, author of We the Animals
Rodrigo Toscano, author of The Charm & the Dread
M. Tran, author of Daughters of the New Year
Tony Tulathimutte, author of Private Citizens
Leticia Urieta, author of Las Criaturas
Preeti Vangani, author of Mother Tongue Apologize
Alejandro Varela, author of The Town of Babylon
Jose Antonio Vargas, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen
Oscar Villalon, editor of ZYZZYVA
Vanessa Angelica Villareal, author of Beast Meridian
Ursula Villareal-Moura, author of Math for the Self-Crippling
Sarah Viren, author of To Name the Bigger Lie
Qian Julie Wang, author of Beautiful Country: A Memoir of An Undocumented Childhood
Esmé Weijun Wang, author of The Collected Schizophrenias
Jesmyn Ward, author of Sing, Unburied, Sing
William Ward Butler, author of Life History
Noah Warren, author of The Complete Stories
Bryan Washington, author of Family Meal
Jemimah Wei, Stegner Fellow
Michael Welch, Editor-in-Chief of Chicago Review of Books
Naomi Williams, author of Landfalls
Colin Winette, author of Users
Jane Wong, author of Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City
Iris Yamashita, author of City Under One Roof
Lisa Yee, author of Maizy Chen’s Last Chance
Lidia Yuknavitch, author of The Chronology of Water, Thrust, Verge
Javier Zamora, author of Solito: A Memoir
Matthew Zapruder, author of Story of a Poem
Leni Zumas, author of Red Clocks