University of Minnesota Alumni Association

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175 Faces, Facts, and Firsts: Pulitzers

120. Prose and Poetry

Poet, novelist, and literary critic Robert Penn Warren came to UMN Twin Cities in 1942 to direct the creative writing program. While on the faculty, he wrote All the King’s Men, a novel that won the Pulitzer Prize in 1947. Warren also won two Pulitzers for poetry in 1958 and 1979, making him the only writer to win the prize in both prose and poetry.

121. Wright Stuff

The poet James Wright came into his full voice after moving to Minnesota in 1957, where he taught in the UMN Twin Cities English department. There, he fell in with the emerging Midwestern circle of writers like Robert Bly who were experimenting with spare, imagistic language. He was elected a fellow of the Academy of American Poets in 1971, and the following year, his Collected Poems won the Pulitzer Prize in poetry.

122. Foreign Correspondent

A giant of 20th century journalism, Harrison Salisbury graduated from UMN Twin Cities in 1930 with a degree in English composition and political science. Salisbury started his career as editor of The Minnesota Daily and found employment at the United Press news service. A foreign correspondent for the United Press and the New York Times, he won a Pulitzer Prize for his international reporting on the Soviet Union. Salisbury also authored 29 books.


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