Two Yaddo Writers Win Pulitzer Prizes

Three Other Yaddo Writers Are Finalists

Jeffrey Euginedes Photo by Peter Burkhard

Yaddo writers Jeffrey Eugenides and Paul Muldoon have been awarded 2003 Pulitzer Prizes, and three other Yaddo artists were finalists for the prestigious awards, it was announced Tuesday.

Mr. Eugenides, who has twice been a Yaddo guest artist, received the fiction award for his epic novel Middlesex, a story about three generations of a Greek-American family spanning eight decades. In naming Middlesex one of the seven best books of 2002, the editors of The New York Times Book Review said it was "colossally curious, shaggy and exuberant." Middlesex is Mr. Eugenides's second novel; his first was The Virgin Suicides. He currently lives in Berlin.

Paul Muldoon Photo by Peter C. Cook

Moy Sand and Gravel, winner of the 2003 Pulitzer in poetry, is Mr. Muldoon's ninth collection. The Irish-born writer has been hailed as "the most significant English language poet born since the Second World War" by The Times Literary Supplement. Moy Sand and Gravel also won Mr. Muldoon the International Griffin Poetry Prize, presented June 12 in Toronto. The judges praised the book as a "merry dance," full of stories and cradle songs, nursery rhymes, riddles, and prayer. The award includes a $30,000 prize. Critics have praised Moy Sand and Gravel as a smart collection of poems concerning large historical issues as well as his trademark topic of the fragilities of everyday life. Mr. Muldoon has written the librettos for three major operas by Yaddo composer Daron Hagen. Mr. Muldoon is a professor of creative writing at Princeton University.

Peter Cameron Novel: a PEN/Faulkner Finalist Peter Cameron's novel The City of Your Final Destination - substantially written at Yaddo - was a finalist for the 23rd Annual PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. Mr. Cameron's story follows a naïve young graduate student who travels to a crumbling mansion in Uruguay seeking authorization to write the biography of a suicidal novelist. The winning book is a collection of stories by Sabina Murray, The Caprices. Finalists, who each receive $5,000, also included William Kennedy's Roscoe, Victor LaValle's The Ecstatic and Gilbert Sorrentino's Little Casino. This year's prize was presented May 17 in Washington, D.C. Mr. Cameron has been a guest artist at Yaddo six times, most recently in 2001. He is the author of three previous novels, including The Weekend (1994) and Andorra (1997), and three story collections, and his work has appeared in many leading publications, including the New Yorker and Paris Review.

Other Yaddo writers who were finalists for 2003 Pulitzers include Nicholas Dawidoff, whose book The Fly Swatter was nominated in the biography category; J.D. McClatchy, who was nominated in poetry for Hazmat; and Andrea Barrett, author of Servants of the Map: Stories, which was a fiction nominee.

The Pulitzer Prize Awards were presented at a luncheon on May 19 at Columbia University. Each of the winners receives $7,500. Yaddo artists have received a total of 57 Pulitzer Prizes. For a list of all Yaddo recipients, click here. You can read excerpts from both Pulitzer winner works at the Barnes and Noble web site, by using these links: Middlesex and Moy Sand and Gravel.