Irish Writers Win Pulitzers
Two Irish writers and one Irish American journalist were honored with Pulitzer Prizes in April. 32-year old lawyer and journalist Samantha Power won for general non-fiction for her book A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide and Paul Muldoon won for poetry for his book Moy Sand and Gravel. Irish American Kevin Cullen received Pulitzer recognition as part of the team on The Boston Globe for their treatment of the sexual abuse scandal involving priests from the Roman Catholic Church. Authors Power and Muldoon were born in Ireland and now live in the United States.
Despite not believing the news at first, Muldoon said he was “thrilled and delighted” to have won the coveted prize. Muldoon’s recent poems are largely based on his childhood in Ireland in the 1950’s and 1960’s, and other poems are influenced by his life in America, where he has lived since 1987.
Power’s book is an investigation into America’s role and negligent foreign policies in the genocides of Cambodia, Iraq and Rwanda. When she found out that she had won the award she “literally staggered.” But the news came on the heels of the announcement that Michael Kelly, editor at large of the Atlantic Monthly was killed while covering the war in Iraq. He was her first editor when she was working as a journalist covering the war in Bosnia.
Power teaches U.S. foreign policy at Harvard University, and Muldoon is a professor of the humanities at Princeton University. Samantha Power was honored by Irish America as one of the Top 100 this year.
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