Congratulations to three 2024 Pulitzer Prize winners featured on Book Breaks!

Congratulations to Jacqueline Jones, Jonathan Eig, and Ilyon Woo!

On May 6, 2024, Columbia University announced the 108th Pulitzer Prizes, awarded on the recommendation of the Pulitzer Prize Board. Among the winners were Jones, Eig, and Woo—all of whom appeared on our weekly interview series, Book Breaks, to discuss their Pulitzer Prize–winning books.

The significant works by Jones, Eig, and Woo will undoubtedly shape public discourse and leave a lasting impact on society. We’re honored to have had the opportunity to learn directly from the authors about their books’ historical content, themes, and lasting legacy.

Learn more about the prize-winning books below, then check out each author’s Book Breaks session to review the insightful discussions.

Jacqueline Jones for History

Jacqueline Jones won for her book No Right to an Honest Living: The Struggles of Boston’s Black Workers in the Civil War Era. Her work was recognized as a“distinguished and appropriately documented book on the history of the United States.”

The Pulitzer Board describes Jones’s book as “a breathtakingly original reconstruction of free Black life in Boston that profoundly reshapes our understanding of the city’s abolitionist legacy and the challenging reality for its Black residents.”

Watch Jones’s Book Breaks session from April 23, 2023.

Jonathan Eig and Ilyon Woo for Biography

Jonathan Eig’s and Ilyon Woo’s works were each recognized as a “distinguished and appropriately documented biography by an American author.”

Jonathan Eig won for his book King: A Life, which the Pulitzer Board described as “a revelatory portrait of Martin Luther King, Jr. that draws on new sources to enrich our understanding of each stage of the civil rights leader’s life, exploring his strengths and weaknesses, including the self-questioning and depression that accompanied his determination.”

Watch Eig’s Book Breaks session from August 20, 2023.

Ilyon Woo won for her book Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom, which the Pulitzer Board described as “a rich narrative of the Crafts, an enslaved couple who escaped from Georgia in 1848, with light-skinned Ellen disguised as a disabled white gentleman and William as her manservant, exploiting assumptions about race, class and disability to hide in public on their journey to the North, where they became famous abolitionists while evading bounty hunters.”

Watch Woo’s Book Breaks session from February 12, 2023.

Book Breaks is a virtual interview series with historians held every Sunday at 2pm ET. Visit here to learn more about our upcoming programs.

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