Which author won the 1960 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for Advise and Consent?

Allen Drury won the 1960 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for Advise and Consent.

Published in 1959, the novel is a political thriller centered on the United States Senate’s consideration of a controversial nominee for secretary of state. The story explores confirmation hearings, party conflict, personal secrets, and the pressure placed on elected officials.

Drury drew on his experience as a newspaper reporter covering Congress. The novel’s title comes from the constitutional phrase requiring the Senate’s “advice and consent” for certain presidential appointments.

Advise and Consent became a major bestseller and was adapted into a 1962 film directed by Otto Preminger. Readers sometimes mistake it for nonfiction because of its detailed congressional setting, but it is a novel. Its Pulitzer recognition went to Drury’s fiction, not to a journalistic account of Washington politics.