Which author won the 1968 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Confessions of Nat Turner?

William Styron won the 1968 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Confessions of Nat Turner.

Published in 1967, the novel is a fictional first-person account of Nat Turner, the enslaved preacher who led an 1831 rebellion in Virginia. Styron imagined Turner’s thoughts and voice while drawing on the historical revolt and on the recorded confession associated with it.

The book became a major literary success, but it also generated intense debate. Critics and historians questioned the choices involved when a white novelist represented the inner life of an enslaved Black historical figure. The controversy has become part of the novel’s reception history and is important context for understanding its place in American literature.

The novel should not be confused with Nat Turner’s own historical confession, which is a nineteenth-century document rather than Styron’s twentieth-century work. Styron’s book is explicitly a work of historical fiction.