Heartland Prize

The Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize is a literary prize created in 1988 by the newspaper The Chicago Tribune. It is awarded yearly in two categories: Fiction and Nonfiction. These prizes are awarded to books that "reinforce and perpetuate the values of heartland America."^[1]

Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize — Fiction

• 2019: Rebecca Makkai for The Great Believers^[2]
• 2018: George Saunders, for Lincoln in the Bardo^[3]
• 2017: Colson Whitehead, for The Underground Railroad^[4]
• 2016: Jane Smiley, for Golden Age^[5]
• 2015: Chang-rae Lee, for On Such a Full Sea
• 2014: Daniel Woodrell, for The Maid's Version^[6]
• 2013: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, for Americanah
• 2012: Richard Ford, for Canada
• 2011: Jonathan Franzen, for Freedom
• 2010: E. O. Wilson, for Anthill^[7]
• 2009: Jayne Anne Phillips, for Lark and Termite^[8]
• 2008: Aleksandar Hemon, for The Lazarus Project^[9]
• 2007: Robert Olmstead, for Coal Black Horse
• 2006: Louise Erdrich, for The Painted Drum^[10]
• 2005: Marilynne Robinson, for Gilead
• 2004: Ward Just, for An Unfinished Season
• 2003: Scott Turow, for Reversible Errors
• 2002: Alice Sebold, for The Lovely Bones
• 2001: Mona Simpson, for Off Keck Road^[11]
• 2000: Jeffery Renard Allen, for Rails Under My Back
• 1999: Elizabeth Strout, for Amy and Isabelle
• 1998: Jane Hamilton, for The Short History of a Prince
• 1997: Charles Frazier, for Cold Mountain
• 1996: Antonya Nelson, for Talking in Bed
• 1995: William Maxwell, for All The Days and Nights
• 1994: Maxine Clair, for Rattlebone
• 1993: Annie Proulx, for The Shipping News
• 1992: Jane Smiley, for A Thousand Acres
• 1991: Kaye Gibbons, for A Cure For Dreams
• 1990: Tim O'Brien, for The Things They Carried
• 1989: Ward Just, for Jack Gance
• 1988: Eric Larsen, for An American Memory

Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize — Nonfiction

• 2019: Sarah Smarsh, for Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth^[12]
• 2018: Caroline Fraser, for Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder^[3]
• 2017: Matthew Desmond, for Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City^[4]
• 2016: Margo Jefferson, for Negroland: A Memoir ^[13]
• 2015: Danielle Allen, for Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality
• 2014: Jesmyn Ward, for Men We Reaped^[14]
• 2013: Thomas Dyja, for The Third Coast: When Chicago Built the American Dream^[15]
• 2012: Paul Hendrickson, for Hemingway's Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost, 1934-1961
• 2011: Isabel Wilkerson, for The Warmth of Other Suns^[16]
• 2010: Rebecca Skloot for The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks^[17]
• 2009: Nick Reding, for Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town^[8]
• 2008: Garry Wills, for Head and Heart: American Christianities and What the Gospels Meant^[9]
• 2007: Orville Vernon Burton, for The Age of Lincoln
• 2006: Taylor Branch, for At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-1968^[10]
• 2005: Kevin Boyle, for Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age
• 2004: Ann Patchett, for Truth & Beauty: A Friendship
• 2003: Paul Hendrickson, for Sons of Mississippi: A Story of Race and Its Legacy
• 2002: Studs Terkel, for Will the Circle Be Unbroken?: Reflections on Death, Rebirth, and Hunger for a Faith
• 2001: Louis Menand, for The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America^[11]
• 2000: Zachary Karabell, for The Last Campaign: How Harry Truman Won the 1948 Election
• 1999: Jay Parini for Robert Frost: A Life
• 1998: Alex Kotlowitz, for The Other Side of the River: A Story of Two Towns, A Death, and America's Dilemma
• 1997: Thomas Lynch, for The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade
• 1996: Jonathan Harr, for A Civil Action
• 1995: Richard Stern, for A Sistermony
• 1994: Henry Louis Gates, Jr., for Colored People: A Memoir
• 1993: Norman Maclean, for Young Men and Fire
• 1992: Melissa Fay Greene, for Praying for Sheetrock: A Work of Non-Fiction
• 1991: William Cronon, for Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West
• 1990: Michael Dorris, for The Broken Cord: A Family's Ongoing Struggle with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
• 1989: Joseph Epstein, for Partial Payments: Essays on Writers and Their Lives
• 1988: Don Katz, for The Big Store: Inside the Crisis and Revolution at Sears

References

1. "Heartland Prize", Chicago Tribune.
2. Taylor, Elizabeth (October 11, 2019). "Rebecca Makkai's 'The Great Believers': An empathic novel worthy of the Heartland Prize". The Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 25 November 2019.
3. Johnson, Christen A. (August 23, 2018). "Ron Chernow, George Saunders and Caroline Fraser win 2018 Tribune literary prizes". Chicago Tribune.
4. "Book awards: Heartland Prize". LibraryThing. Retrieved 10 September 2018.
5. Golden Age
6. Taylor, Elizabeth (24 October 2014). "'The Maid's Version' wins 2014 Heartland Prize for Fiction". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 25 April 2015.
7. "2010 Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize-Winners: E.O. Wilson and Rebecca Skloot | Chicago Humanities Festival". Archived from the original on 2013-11-05. Retrieved 2011-02-04.
8. "Chicago Humanities Festival | 2009 Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize Winners". www.chicagohumanities.org. Archived from the original on 2011-05-05.
9. "Chicago Humanities Festival | Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize Winners 2008". www.chicagohumanities.org. Archived from the original on 2011-09-08.
10. "Chicago Humanities Festival | Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize, 2006: Taylor Branch and Louise Erdrich". www.chicagohumanities.org. Archived from the original on 2011-09-14.
11. "Chicago Humanities Festival | Menand, Simpson, and Raboteau | 2001 Chicago Tribune Heartland and Nelson Algren Prizes". www.chicagohumanities.org. Archived from the original on 2011-10-08.
12. Day, Jennifer (October 28, 2019). "Authors Rebecca Makkai, Sarah Smarsh accept 2019 Heartland Prizes". Chicago Tribune.
13. "Margo Jefferson memoir 'Negroland' a resonant Heartland Prize winner". Chicago Tribune.
14. Taylor, Elizabeth (23 October 2014). "'Men We Reaped' wins 2014 Heartland Prize for Fiction". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 25 April 2015.
15. "Thomas Dyja's 'The Third Coast' awarded nonfiction Heartland Prize - Chicago Tribune". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on 2013-11-05.
16. "Chicago Humanities Festival | 2011 Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize Winners | Jonathan Franzen | Isabel Wilkerson". www.chicagohumanities.org. Archived from the original on 2012-01-03.
17. "E. O. Wilson and Rebecca Skloot: 2010 Chicago Tribune Heartland Prizes". chicagohumanities.org. 2011. Archived from the original on November 5, 2013. Retrieved May 3, 2016.