Bard Professor Hua Hsu’s Stay True Wins the Pulitzer Prize for Memoir

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.—Bard College Professor of Literature Hua Hsu has won a 2023 Pulitzer Prize for his memoir Stay True (Doubleday, 2022). The Pulitzer Prize jury called Stay True “an elegant and poignant coming of age account that considers intense, youthful friendships but also random violence that can suddenly and permanently alter the presumed logic of our personal narratives.” Hsu’s Pulitzer book prize was awarded for a distinguished and factual memoir or autobiography by an American author and is accompanied by a cash award of $15,000. This year’s Pulitzer Prize recipients will constitute the 107th class of Pulitzer Prize winners. The first prizes were given in 1917 for work done in 1916. Each year, 23 prizes are awarded.

Hsu is the inaugural winner of the Pulitzer Prize’s newest book prize category for Memoir or Autobiography, which was announced as part of the 2023 competition. Previously, memoirs and autobiographies were submitted and judged in the Biography category. “Memoirs and autobiographies are flourishing,” said Marjorie Miller, administrator of the prizes. “After years of considering them alongside distinguished biographies and other nonfiction, and, at the urging of some nominating jurors, the Pulitzer Board felt it was time for each genre to have its own prize category.” The Pulitzer Prizes for books are awarded annually to work in Fiction, U.S. History, Biography, Memoir or Autobiography, Poetry and Nonfiction first published in the United States during preceding calendar year.

Hua Hsu is a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of A Floating Chinaman: Fantasy and Failure Across the Pacific (2016) and the memoir Stay True (September 2022), which won the 2022 National Book Critics Circle award for autobiography. He is currently working on an essay collection titled Impostor Syndrome. Hsu is a contributor to CBS News’s Sunday Morning; serves on the governance board of Critical Minded, a collaboration between the Ford Foundation and the Nathan Cummings Foundation; and serves as judge for various literary competitions and fellowships, including the PEN America Literary Awards, Rona Jaffe Fellowship, and Dayton Literary Peace Prize. He was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in criticism in 2018 (New Yorker); was a finalist for the James Beard Award for Food Writing in 2013 (for “Wokking the Suburbs,” Lucky Peach); and his work has been anthologized in Best Music Writing (2010 and 2012) and Best African American Essays 2010. Hsu previously wrote for Artforum, The Atlantic, Grantland, Slate, and The Wire; his scholarly work has been published in American Quarterly, Criticism, PMLA, and Genre. He previously taught at Vassar College and was formerly a fellow at the New American Foundation and the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center at the New York Public Library. Professor Hsu’s research and academic interests include Asian American studies, transpacific studies, critical ethnic studies, popular culture and subculture, and literary nonfiction. He received his BA for the University of California, Berkeley and his PhD from Harvard University. He has taught at Bard since 2022.
About the Pulitzer Prizes
The Pulitzer Prizes were established by Joseph Pulitzer, a Hungarian-American journalist and newspaper publisher, who left money to Columbia University upon his death in 1911. A portion of his bequest was used to found the School of Journalism in 1912 and establish the Pulitzer Prizes, which were first awarded in 1917. The 18-member Pulitzer Board is composed of leading journalists or news executives from media outlets across the U.S., as well as five academics or persons in the arts. The dean of Columbia’s journalism school and the administrator of the prizes are non-voting members. The chair rotates annually to the most senior member or members. pulitzer.org

About Bard College
Founded in 1860, Bard College is a four-year, residential college of the liberal arts and sciences located 90 miles north of New York City. With the addition of the Montgomery Place estate, Bard’s campus consists of nearly 1,000 parklike acres in the Hudson River Valley. It offers bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, and bachelor of music degrees, with majors in more than 40 academic programs; graduate degrees in 13 programs; eight early colleges; and numerous dual-degree programs nationally and internationally. Building on its 163-year history as a competitive and innovative undergraduate institution, Bard College has expanded its mission as a private institution acting in the public interest across the country and around the world to meet broader student needs and increase access to liberal arts education. The undergraduate program at our main campus in upstate New York has a reputation for scholarly excellence, a focus on the arts, and civic engagement. Bard is committed to enriching culture, public life, and democratic discourse by training tomorrow’s thought leaders. For more information about Bard College, visit bard.edu.

Website: https://www.pulitzer.org/news/2023-pulitzer-prize-announcement

This event was last updated on 05-09-2023

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