Cormac McCarthy’s novel “The Road” won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2007.
Published in 2006, “The Road” follows an unnamed father and his young son as they travel through a devastated landscape after an unspecified catastrophe. Industrial civilization has collapsed, most life has disappeared, and the pair must search for food and shelter while avoiding dangerous survivors. Despite its bleak setting, the novel focuses on love, moral responsibility, endurance, and the father’s determination to protect his child.
The Pulitzer recognized the novel’s stark prose and emotional power. McCarthy had already written influential works such as “Blood Meridian,” “All the Pretty Horses,” and “No Country for Old Men,” which can make the titles in this question easy to mix up. Unlike those earlier novels, “The Road” is explicitly post-apocalyptic and centers on a parent-child journey.
The book also won the 2006 James Tait Black Memorial Prize and was adapted into a 2009 film directed by John Hillcoat. Oprah Winfrey selected it for her Book Club in 2007, bringing McCarthy an unusually broad television audience.