2024 퓰리처상 전기 부문상: 우일연 '노예 주인 남편 아내'

1848년 조지아에서 변장해 북으로 탈출한 노예 부부 이야기 

코리안아메리칸 작가 우일연(Ilyon Woo)씨의 넌픽션 '노예 주인 남편 아내 (Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey From Slavery to Freedom)'가 조나단 에이그(Jonathan Eig)의 '마틴 루터 킹: 삶(King: A Life)'와 2024 퓰리처상(Pulitzer Prize) 전기 부문상을 공동으로 수상했다. 존 F. 케네디 대통령은 1957년 자서전 'Profiles in Courage' (Harper)로 퓰리처 전기(Biography) 부문상을 수상했다.

'노예 주인 남편 아내'는 1848년 조지아주에서 흑인 노예의 아내는 백인 농장주 변장하고, 남편은 그의 노예로 변장해 북으로 탈출한 크래프트 부부의 이야기를 담았다. 이 전기는 뉴욕타임스에 의해 2023년 최우수 도서 10(The 10 Best Books of 2023)에도 선정됐다. 

뉴욕타임스는 "1848년 조지아의 노예 엘렌과 윌리엄 크래프트 부부는 병든 젊은 백인 농장주와 그의 남자노예로 위장해 대담하게 북쪽으로 탈출했다. 엘렌은 난로통 모자, 짙은 녹색 안경, 오른쪽에 슬링을 쓴 부유한 후손으로 변장했다. 그녀는 문맹을 숨기기 위해 슬링을 착용했다. 근접한 위기와 단호한 노예 포획자들에도 불구하고 크래프트는 도주에 성공해, 영국의 노예제도 폐지론자 연설 투어를 돌며 그들의 여정에 대한 대중적인 이야기를 썼다. 미국의 주요한 노예폐지론자는 이 책에 대해 “미국 연대기 중 가장 감동적인 이야기 중 하나”라고 칭한 그들의 이야기는 충분히 놀랍다. 그러나 크래프트 부부의 탈출을 참신한 디테일로 불러일으키는 우일연의 몰입적인 묘사는 마찬가지로 연구, 스토리텔링, 공감 및 통찰력의 위업이다"라고 평했다. 

퓰리처상 상금은 1만5천 달러. 역대 전기 부문 수상작 링크. 

우일연씨는 예일대 졸업 후 컬럼비아대에서 영문학 박사학위를 받은 2010년 “The Great Divorce: A Nineteenth-Century Mother’s Extraordinary Fight against Her Husband, the Shakers, and Her Times”를 발표했다. 우일연씨의 부모는 건축가 우규성씨(메트뮤지엄 한국실, 환기박물관 설계)와 피아니스트 김정자씨(1961년 뉴욕필과 카네기홀 데뷔)다. 

Pulitzer Prizes: 2023 Winners

#PUBLIC SERVICE

ProPublica: Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott, Brett Murphy, Alex Mierjeski and Kirsten Berg (“groundbreaking and ambitious reporting that pierced the thick wall of secrecy surrounding the Supreme Court.”)

*Finalists KFF Health News and Cox Media Group; The Washington Post

#BREAKING NEWS

Staff of Lookout Santa Cruz (“its detailed and nimble community-focused coverage, over a holiday weekend, of catastrophic flooding and mudslides that displaced thousands of residents and destroyed more than 1,000 homes and businesses.”)

*Finalists Staff of Honolulu Civil Beat; Staff of The Los Angeles Times

#INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING

Hannah Dreier of The New York Times (“a deeply reported series of stories revealing the stunning reach of migrant child labor across the United States — and the corporate and governmental failures that perpetuate it.”)

*Finalists Staff of Bloomberg; Casey Ross and Robert Herman of Stat

#EXPLANATORY REPORTING

Sarah Stillman of The New Yorker(“searing indictment of our legal system’s reliance on the felony murder charge and its disparate consequences, often devastating for communities of color,”) 

*Finalists Staff of Bloomberg; Staffs of The Texas Tribune, ProPublica and Frontline

#LOCAL REPORTING

Sarah Conway of City Bureau and Trina Reynolds-Tyler of the Invisible Institute (“their investigative series on missing Black girls and women in Chicago that revealed how systemic racism and police department neglect contributed to the crisis.”)

*Finalists Jerry Mitchell, Ilyssa Daly, Brian Howey and Nate Rosenfield of Mississippi Today and The New York Times; Staff of The Villages Daily Sun

#NATIONAL REPORTING

-Staff of Reuters (“an eye-opening series of accountability stories” focused on the automobile and aerospace businesses helmed by the billionaire Elon Musk.) 

-Staff of The Washington Post (“its sobering examination of the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle.”)

*Finalists Bianca Vázquez Toness and Sharon Lurye of The Associated Press; Dave Philipps of The New York Times

#INTERNATIONAL REPORTING

Staff of The New York Times (“wide-ranging and revelatory coverage of Hamas’ lethal attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, Israel’s intelligence failures and the Israeli military’s sweeping, deadly response in Gaza,”) 

*Finalists Julie Turkewitz and Federico Rios of The New York Times; Staff of The Washington Post

#FEATURE WRITING

Katie Engelhart, contributing writer, The New York Times (“for her fair-minded portrait of a family’s legal and emotional struggles during a matriarch’s progressive dementia.”)  

*Finalists Keri Blakinger of The Marshall Project, co-published with The New York Times Magazine; Jennifer Senior of The Atlantic

#COMMENTARY

Vladimir Kara-Murza, contributor, The Washington Post (“passionate columns written at great personal risk from his prison cell, warning of the consequences of dissent in Vladimir Putin’s Russia and insisting on a democratic future for his country.”)

*Finalists Brian Lyman of The Alabama Reflector; Jay Caspian Kang of The New Yorker

#CRITICISM

Justin Chang of The Los Angeles Times (Mr. Chang’s film criticism “reflects on the contemporary moviegoing experience...richly evocative and genre-spanning.”)

*Finalists Zadie Smith, contributor, The New York Review of Books; Vinson Cunningham of The New Yorker

#EDITORIAL WRITING

David E. Hoffman of The Washington Post (“compelling and well-researched series on new technologies and the tactics authoritarian regimes use to repress dissent in the digital age and how they can be fought.”)

*Finalists Isadora Rangel of The Miami Herald; Brandon McGinley and Rebecca Spiess of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

#ILLUSTRATED REPORTING AND COMMENTARY

Medar de la Cruz, contributor, The New Yorker (“his visually driven story set inside Rikers Island jail using bold black-and-white images that humanize the prisoners and staff through their hunger for books.”)

*Finalists Clay Bennett of The Chattanooga Times Free Press; Angie Wang, contributor, The New Yorker; Claire Healy, Nicole Dungca and Ren Galeno, contributor, of The Washington Post

#BREAKING NEWS PHOTOGRAPHY

Photography Staff of Reuters (“raw and urgent photographs documenting the Oct. 7 deadly attack in Israel by Hamas and the first weeks of Israel’s devastating assault on Gaza.”)

*Finalists Adem Altan of Agence France Presse; Nicole S. Hester of The Tennessean

#FEATURE PHOTOGRAPHY

Photography Staff of The Associated Press (“poignant photographs chronicling unprecedented masses of migrants and their arduous journey north from Colombia to the border of the United States.”)

*Finalists Nanna Heitmann, contributor, The New York Times; Hannah Reyes Morales, contributor, The New York Times

#AUDIO REPORTING

Staffs of the Invisible Institute and USG Audio (“powerful series that revisits a Chicago hate crime from the 1990s, a fluid amalgam of memoir, community history and journalism.”)

*Finalists Dan Slepian and Preeti Varathan, contributor, of NBC News; Lauren Chooljian, Alison Macadam, Jason Moon, Daniel Barrick and Katie Colaneri of New Hampshire Public Radio

#FICTION

“Night Watch,” by Jayne Anne Phillips

*Finalists “Wednesday’s Child,” by Yiyun Li; “Same Bed Different Dreams,” by Ed Park

#DRAMA

“Primary Trust,” by Eboni Booth 

*Finalists “Here There Are Blueberries,” by Moises Kaufman and Amanda Gronich; “Public Obscenities,” by Shayok Misha Chowdhury

#HISTORY

“No Right to an Honest Living: The Struggles of Boston’s Black Workers in the Civil War Era,” by Jacqueline Jones

*Finalists “Continental Reckoning: The American West in the Age of Expansion,” by Elliott West; “American Anarchy: The Epic Struggle Between Immigrant Radicals and the U.S. Government at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century,” by Michael Willrich

#BIOGRAPHY

-“King: A Life,” by Jonathan Eig

-“Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey From Slavery to Freedom,” by Ilyon Woo

*Finalists “Larry McMurtry: A Life,” by Tracy Daugherty

#MEMOIR OR AUTOBIOGRAPHY

“Liliana’s Invincible Summer: A Sister’s Search for Justice,” by Cristina Rivera Garza

*Finalists “The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight,” by Andrew Leland; “The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness and the Tragedy of Good Intentions,” by Jonathan Rosen

#POETRY

“Tripas: Poems,” by Brandon Som

*Finalists “To 2040,” by Jorie Graham; “Information Desk: An Epic,” by Robyn Schiff

#GENERAL NONFICTION

“A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy,” by Nathan Thrall

*Finalists “Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives,” by Siddharth Kara; “Fire Weather: A True Story From a Hotter World,” by John Vaillant

#MUSIC

“Adagio (For Wadada Leo Smith),” by Tyshawn Sorey

*Finalists “Paper Pianos,” by Mary Kouyoumdjian; “Double Concerto for esperanza spalding, Claire Chase and large orchestra,” by Felipe Lara

#SPECIAL CITATIONS

Greg Tate, writer and critic