Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 13, 1990 TAG: 9004130302
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
"I was very surprised," said Wilson. "I thought, `Wow. This is No. 2.' It made me want to go right to my typewriter and start another one."
Wilson's play won in the drama category. The Pulitzer for fiction went to "The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love," Oscar Hijuelos's novel about two Cuban brothers who find some fame in New York's nightclubs.
"In Our Image: America's Empire in the Philippines," by Stanley Karnow, won the award for history. "And Their Children After Them," by Dale Maharidge and Michael Williamson - which revisits the poor Alabamans who were profiled 50 years ago by James Agee and Walker Evans in their classic book, "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" - won for general non-fiction.
Wilson's "The Piano Lesson" - the story of a sharecropper who wants to buy the land his grandfather worked as a slave, and is willing to sell the family piano to pay for it - opens Monday on Broadway.
It has played in regional theaters around the country for more than a year, and had been a Pulitzer finalist in an early form last year - the first time a play has been a finalist in consecutive years. The version submitted for consideration this year "was significantly changed" from the 1989 finalist, said Pulitzer administrator Robert Christopher.
Wilson won the 1987 Pulitzer in drama for "Fences."
Columbia University awarded 14 prizes in journalism and seven in the arts. Each award carried with it a $3,000 prize, except the award for public service in journalism, which is a gold medal.
The other arts Pulitzers went to "Machiavelli in Hell" by Sebastian de Grazia, for biography; "The World Doesn't End," by Charles Simic, for poetry; and "Duplicates," a concerto for two pianos and orchestra by Mel Powell, for music.
The award for public service in journalism was given to two newspapers that exposed health menaces - the Washington (N.C.) Daily News for an expose of carcinogens in the city water supply, and The Philadelphia Inquirer for its probe of the blood industry.
Reporting on a third health threat - the link between the dietary supplement L-tryptophan and a rare blood disorder - won the Pulitzer for specialized reporting for Tamar Stieber of the Albuquerque (N.M.) Journal. Ultimately, the supplement was recalled nationally.
The staff of the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News, which published with the aid of emergency generators in the aftermath of the Oct. 17 earthquake, won the general news award for its coverage of the disaster. The spot news photography award went to the photo staff of The Tribune of Oakland, Calif., for pictures of the earthquake's devastation.
The award for international reporting went to Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn of The New York Times, a husband-wife team that covered the mass movement for democracy in China and its suppression.
David C. Turnley of the Detroit Free Press won the feature photography prize for his coverage of political uprising in China and Eastern Europe.
They broke out champagne at the Inquirer, which won for reporter Gilbert M. Gaul's series. It was the Philadelphia newspaper's 17th Pulitzer - and the 11th in the past six years.
The investigative reporting award went to Lou Kilzer and Chris Ison of the Star Tribune of Minneapolis-St. Paul, for their revelation of a network of local citizens who were linked to members of the St. Paul fire department and who profited from fires.
The explanatory journalism award went to David A. Vise and Steve Coll of The Washington Post for stories examining the workings of the Securities and Exchange Commission and its former chairman, John Shad.
Four reporters for The Seattle Times - Ross Anderson, Bill Dietrich, Mary Ann Gwinn and Eric Nalder - received the national reporting award for their coverage of the Exxon Valdez oil spill and its aftermath.
For his feature writing award, Dave Curtin of the Colorado Springs (Colo.) Gazette Telegraph profiled a family that was struggling to recover from an explosion that devastated their home and left them severely burned.
Other awards included: For commentary, sports columnist Jim Murray of the Los Angeles Times.
For criticism, Allan Temko of the San Francisco Chronicle. "Did I win?" said the architecture critic. "Is it true? How extraordinary. I've always been a bridesmaid."
For editorial writing, Thomas J. Hylton of The Mercury of Pottstown, Pa., who wrote editorials about a local bond issue for the preservation of farmland and other open space in rural Pennsylvania. For editorial cartooning, Tom Toles of The Buffalo (N.Y.) News.
by CNB