Four authors have won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once: Booth Tarkington, William Faulkner, John Updike, and Colson Whitehead.
Tarkington won in 1919 and 1922. Faulkner won in 1955 and 1963, Updike in 1982 and 1991, and Whitehead in 2017 and 2020. Each of these writers therefore has two fiction-Pulitzer victories, making four repeat-winning authors rather than four total awards.
The wording can cause confusion because the prize was called the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel from 1918 through 1947 and became the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1948. The count also concerns authors, not books, finalists, or nominations. Other celebrated writers, including Toni Morrison and Ernest Hemingway, do not add to this total under the official repeat-winner list.