Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 14, 1993 TAG: 9304140253
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RICHARD PYLE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
MCCULLOUGH LEADS LIST OF ARTS PULITZER WINNERS
The 1993 Pulitzer Prize for biography was awarded Tuesday to David McCullough for "Truman," and the fiction award went to "A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain," by Robert Olen Butler.Tony Kushner won the drama prize for "Angels in America: Millennium Approaches."
McCullough, the author of five acclaimed history books, spent 10 years working on his biography of President Harry Truman. His past books covered topics such as the Johnstown flood, the Panama Canal and President Theodore Roosevelt. He also narrated the highly praised PBS series "The Civil War."
"I don't think there's any more important tribute that a writer can receive," McCullough, a year-round resident of Martha's Vineyard, Mass., said after winning the Pulitzer Prize.
The award came on the anniversary of his subject's first day in office: April 13, 1945.
Truman became a mainstay of last summer's presidential campaign; both candidates had read McCullough's book.
Butler, a creative-writing teacher, has written six novels and an assortment of short stories.
Kushner's play is the first half of a seven-hour, two-part drama about AIDS, hypocrisy and greed in the Reagan era. It opens April 29 on Broadway after completing a yearlong run at the National Theater of Great Britain. Kushner is a New York City resident.
"FAAAAAAAAAABULOUS!" read a statement issued by the playwright. "I'm overjoyed at the news about the Pulitzer."
Garry Wills, a widely published columnist and commentator on American culture, received the Pulitzer for general non-fiction for "Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America." In February, he won the 1992 National Book Critics Circle award for criticism for the same book.
The award for poetry went to Louise Gluck for "The Wild Iris," her fifth collection of poetry.
"The Radicalism of the American Revolution" by Gordon S. Wood won the Pulitzer for history. Wood is a professor of history at Brown University.
The music award went to "Trombone Concerto" by Christopher Rouse, a Baltimore composer who doubles as a rock music historian. Rouse's compositions have been performed by cellist Yo-Yo Ma, among others.