Associated Press employees applaud as the AP wins the Pulitzer Prize for public service, Monday, April 18, 2016, in New York. The AP report documented the use of slave labor in Southeast Asia to supply seafood to American tables, an investigation that spurred the release of more than 2,000 captive workers. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
Republished April 18, 2016 - 1:59 PM
Original Publication Date April 18, 2016 - 12:25 PM
NEW YORK, N.Y. - The Latest on the awarding of the 100th-annual Pulitzer Prizes (all times local):
4:55 p.m.
The plight of refugees is among the social issues tackled by this year's Pulitzer Prize winners.
Among the prize's arts categories, former refugee Viet Thanh Nguyen (VEE'-eht tahn gwihn) won the fiction prize Monday for "The Sympathizer" — an immigrant tale told in a "wry, confessional voice."
"Hamilton," the hip-hop stage biography of Caribbean emigrant Alexander Hamilton, won for drama.
In journalism, The Associated Press won for public service. It documented the use of slave labour in the commercial seafood industry in Indonesia and Thailand.
The New York Times and Reuters won for heart-wrenching breaking news photos of desperate refugees.
In one Times photo, a man with blood streaming down his face shields a child in a cloud of tear gas as migrants try to surge into Hungary from Serbia.
___
4:25 p.m.
Lin-Manuel Miranda says he's "living in the highlight reel section" of his life after winning the Pulitzer Prize for drama for his musical "Hamilton."
Miranda told The Associated Press on Monday that's he's humbled and overwhelmed by the win. He wrote the music and story for the Broadway show about the nation's first U.S. Treasury secretary.
Miranda joked that he had a "home-court advantage" because the prizes were announced at Columbia University, which is Alexander Hamilton's alma mater.
The drama award was widely expected to go to Miranda this year. The album for "Hamilton" won a Grammy Award and became the highest-debuting cast recording on the Billboard Top 200 in over 50 years. The show is a leading favourite in this summer's Tony Awards.
___
3:40 p.m.
"Ozone Journal" by Peter Balakian has won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry.
The Pulitzer board said Monday that Balakian's poems "bear witness to the old losses and tragedies that undergird a global age of danger and uncertainty."
Finalists in the category were "Alive: New and Selected Poems" by Elizabeth Willis and "Four-Legged Girl" by Diane Seuss.
___
3:35 p.m.
"Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS" by Joby Warrick has won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction.
Warrick is a journalist with The Washington Post and a previous Pulitzer winner. The Pulitzer board says he was honoured for "a deeply reported book of remarkable clarity showing how the flawed rationale for the Iraq War led to the explosive growth of the Islamic State."
Warrick also won the Pulitzer in 1996 as part of a team reporting on the environmental and health risks of waste disposal systems used in North Carolina's growing hog industry.
Finalists were "Between the World and Me," the much-celebrated work by Ta-Nehisi Coates, and "If the Oceans Were Ink: An Unlikely Friendship and a Journey to the Heart of the Qur’an" by Carla Power.
___
3:30 p.m.
The Washington Post has won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting.
The Post's staff was honoured Monday for creating and using a national database to illustrate how often and why police shoot to kill.
The Post found that in 2015, on-duty police officers shot and killed 990 people nationwide. It reported that unarmed black men were seven times more likely to die at the hands of police officers than unarmed whites were. More than 50 of the officers had killed someone before.
___
3:25 p.m.
"In for a Penny, In for a Pound" by Henry Threadgill has won the Pulitzer Prize for music.
Judges described the recording as "a highly original work in which notated music and improvisation mesh in a sonic tapestry that seems the very expression of modern American life."
Other finalists included "The Blind Banister" by Timo Andres and "The Mechanics: Six from the Shop Floor" by Carter Pann.
___
3:15 p.m.
The Tampa Bay Times and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune have won the Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting for a project on mental hospitals.
The Tampa Bay Times also won the local reporting category for studying the effects of education in Pinellas County, Florida, when schools in poor neighbourhoods were essentially desegregated and neglected.
This is the contest's 100th year. The winners were announced Monday afternoon at Columbia University in New York City.
___
3:10 p.m.
"Hamilton," the hip-hop stage biography of Alexander Hamilton, has won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for drama.
The dazzling, exuberant musical by creator and star Lin-Manuel Miranda has captured popular consciousness like few Broadway shows, having already won a Grammy Award, a spot on the Billboard 200 charts and mentions on "Saturday Night Live." It's a leading favourite in this summer's Tony Awards.
The musical tells the story of how an orphan emigrant from the Caribbean rose to the highest ranks of American society, as told by a young African-American and Latino cast.
It becomes the ninth musical to win the drama award, joining such shows as "South Pacific," ''Sunday in the Park with George" and "Rent." The last musical to nab the prize was "Next to Normal" in 2010.
___
3 p.m.
The Associated Press has won the Pulitzer Prize for public service for articles documenting the use of slave labour in the commercial seafood industry in Indonesia and Thailand.
The award was announced Monday at Columbia University in New York City.
AP journalists Margie Mason, Robin McDowell, Martha Mendoza and Esther Htusan (TOO'-san) documented how men from Myanmar and other countries were imprisoned, sometimes in cages, in Indonesia and forced to work on vessels that sent seafood to Thailand.
The project involved interviewing captives and tracking slave-caught seafood to processing plants that supply supermarkets, restaurants and pet stores in the U.S.
___
11:30 a.m.
The winners of the Pulitzer Prizes in journalism, letters, drama and music are set to be announced in New York City.
The year marks the 100th year of the contest. The prizes are set to be announced Monday afternoon at Columbia University.
The Pulitzer Prizes will recognize the best journalism of 2015 in newspapers, magazines and websites. There are 14 categories for reporting, photography, criticism and commentary.
In the arts, prizes are awarded in seven categories, including fiction, drama and music.
The very first Pulitzer Prize in reporting was given in 1917 to Herbert Bayard Swope of the New York World.
Swope reported from the German front lines during World War I.
___
This story has been corrected to show that the first Pulitzer was awarded in 1917, not 1916.
News from © The Associated Press, 2016