The Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing is one of the fourteen American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Journalism. It has been awarded since 1979 for a distinguished example of feature writing giving prime consideration to high literary quality and originality.
Finalists have been announced from 1980, ordinarily two others beside the winner.
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|The New York Times
|"for the layered and riveting account of the last days of a Queens man, part detective story, part eulogy and part exploration of a city's bureaucracy of death."
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|The Washington Post
|"for three humane and topical feature stories exploring lives affected by a natural disaster, gun violence and a frayed social safety net."
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!rowspan=4 |2017
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|The New York Times
|"for showing, through an artful accumulation of fact and detail, that a Marine's postwar descent into violence reflected neither the actions of a simple criminal nor a stereotypical case of PTSD."
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|rowspan=2 |The Wall Street Journal
|rowspan=2 |"for 'The Last Diplomat,' a multilayered thriller that took readers inside the rarely seen intersection of diplomacy and national security, telling the story of one woman's professional ruin after years of service to her country."
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|The Washington Post
|"for a nuanced and empathetic portrait of America created through human stories that chronicled the fissures, resentments, failures and disappointments that marked a divided and restive body politic."
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!rowspan=3 |2018
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|GQ
|"for an unforgettable portrait of murderer Dylann Roof, using a unique and powerful mix of reportage, first-person reflection and analysis of the historical and cultural forces behind his killing of nine people inside Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina."
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|The Washington Post
|"for a gripping portfolio of stories rendered with keen observation and graceful yet simple writing that presents the horror of gun violence from an entirely new perspective: through the eyes of children."
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|The New York Times
|"for a literary masterwork of observation that painted a portrait of the last days of Japan's isolated elders, who are housed in iconic apartment complexes where they prepare for deaths they hope will be noticed and tended to by their quiet neighbors."
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!rowspan=4 |2019
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|ProPublica
|"for a series of powerful, intimate narratives that followed Salvadoran immigrants on New York's Long Island whose lives were shattered by a botched federal crackdown on the international criminal gang MS-13."
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|rowspan=2 |The Post and Courier
|rowspan=2 |"for a deeply moving examination of racial injustice in South Carolina that led to the execution of a 14-year-old black boy wrongfully convicted of killing two white girls, and that ultimately exonerated him seven decades after his death."
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|The Washington Post
|"for eloquent reflections on the exile of a teen sexual assault victim in the author's Texas hometown, delving with moral authority into why the crime remained unpunished."
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!rowspan=4 |2020
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|The New Yorker
|"for a devastating account of a man who was kidnapped, tortured and deprived of his liberty for more than a decade at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, blending on-the-ground reporting and lyrical prose to offer a nuanced perspective on America's wider war on terror."
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|The New York Times
|"for a beautifully written tale of an Indian 'prince' whose story concealed deeper truths rooted in the violence and trauma of the Partition of India."
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|The Verge
|"for her gripping portrait of Ramsey Orta, who recorded the NYPD killing of Eric Garner, using restrained yet powerful language and courageous reporting to show the police retribution endured by a forgotten figure in a story that horrified the nation."
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|The Boston Globe
|"for a sweeping yet intimate story about how climate change is drastically reshaping Cape Cod, locally illustrating the urgent global crisis."
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!rowspan=3 |2021
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|The California Sunday Magazine
|"for a brave and gripping account of global migration that documents a group's journey on foot through the Darién Gap, one of the most dangerous migrant routes in the world."
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|Runner's World
|"for a deeply affecting account of the killing of Ahmaud Arbery that combined vivid writing, thorough reporting and personal experience to shed light on systemic racism in America."
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|The Washington Post
|"for deeply reported stories that powerfully depict the suffering and dislocation endured by Americans who lost their jobs after the sudden collapse of South Florida's tourist economy in the pandemic."
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!rowspan=4 |2022
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|The Atlantic
|"for an unflinching portrait of a family's reckoning with loss in the 20 years since 9/11, masterfully braiding the author's personal connection to the story with sensitive reporting that reveals the long reach of grief."
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|ProPublica
|rowspan=2 |"for their enterprising and empathetic account of 11 Black children in Tennessee who were arrested for a crime that doesn't exist."
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|WPLN
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|The New Yorker
|"for his account, published shortly after the U.S. announced its departure from Afghanistan, of Afghan women who have been forgotten in the dominant narrative about the war."
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!rowspan=3 |2023
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|The Washington Post
|"for evocative individual narratives about people struggling with the pandemic, homelessness, addiction and inequality that collectively form a sharply-observed portrait of contemporary America."
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|The Atlantic
|"for exposing the tortuous last hours of inmates awaiting execution on Alabama's death row and the efforts by the state to conceal the suffering, which led to a temporary moratorium on executions."
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|The Boston Globe
|"for her decade-long investigation of a woman's quest to confirm her childhood sexual abuse that finally uncovered evidence that seemed to verify the horrors."
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!rowspan=4 |2024
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|The New York Times
|"for her fair-minded portrait of a family's legal and emotional struggles during a matriarch's progressive dementia that sensitively probes the mystery of a person's essential self."
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|The Marshall Project
|rowspan=2 |"for her insightful, humane portrait, reported with great difficulty, of men on death row in Texas who play clandestine games of Dungeons and Dragons, countering their extreme isolation with elaborate fantasy."
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|The New York Times Magazine
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|The Atlantic
|"for her exquisitely rendered account of her disabled aunt, who was institutionalized as a small child, and the lasting effects on her family, told in the context of present-day care and intervention that make different outcomes possible."
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!rowspan=3 |2025
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|Esquire
|"for a sensitive portrait of a Baptist pastor and small town mayor who died by suicide after his secret digital life was exposed by a right-wing news site."
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|The New Yorker
|"for a deeply reported narrative of a woman's life before and after she is imprisoned at an isolated detention camp in Eastern Syria, illustrating how love and family intersect with larger geopolitical concerns."
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|The Marshall Project
|"for his exclusive inside account of a legal team's efforts to spare the Parkland high school shooter from the death penalty, a saga of moral complexity, constitutional law and shattering trauma for those involved."
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!rowspan=3 |2026
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|Texas Monthly
|"for his extraordinary personal account of survival and loss written days after the historic Central Texas floods that tore the writer's house out from under him and his family, taking the life of his nephew."
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|The New Yorker
|"for an extraordinary exploration of how some patients diagnosed with schizophrenia actually have autoimmune conditions–and what happens after they're treated."
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|The New York Times
|"for her deeply and sensitively reported narrative that chronicles the explosion of child sex trafficking in Los Angeles."
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