NEW
YORK, Apr 11:-Pulitzer
Prize voters went for
little-known artists over olds favorites this year, with
playwright Donald Margulies, fiction writer Jhumpa Lahiri
and composer Lewis Spartan among the winners.
Margulies
won Monday for his off-Broadway play "Dinner With
Friend," the story of two married couples and what happens
when one decides to divorce. Lahiri was cited for her
collection. "Interpreter of Maladies." and Spratlan for
"Life is Dream, Opera in Three Acts: Act Two, Concert
Version."
The47-year-old
Margulies, in Seattle for rehearsals of a new play , called the
drama prize "a pleasant surprise."
"The
play emerged out of a particular time in my life, a midlife
reflection on the pains of fidelity, friendship and sexual
passion," he said.
His
competition included past Pulitzer winner August Wilson`s
"King Hedley II."
Lahiri
was chosen over past Pulitzer winner Annie Prolix and current
National Book Award winner Ha Jin. The fiction prize usually goes
to a veteran novelist, making Lahiri an unlikely winner for three
reasons: She's 32 ,a debut waiter and an
author of short stories.
Few
expected her to win, in clouding Lahiri. The New Yorker, whose stories
are set in both India and the United States, had just returned
form Boston on Monday after receiving the PEN/Hemingway prize for
best first fiction.
We
were actually joking about the Pulizer Prize yesterday, "She
said, "A friend of the family said, No, no, the Pulitzers come
before that . We were just laughing about it."
Historian
David M. Kennedy, biographer stray Schiff and poet C.K. Williams
were among the other winners in
arts categories.
The
Pulitzer for general nonfiction was awarded to John W. Dower for
"Embracing Defeat: Japan in the wake of World War II." He
earlier won the National Book Award for the same work and also won
the Bancroft prize, an historians award.
"This
is astonishing, said Dower, 65, a professor of history at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "I'm going to dance
around with my wife for a fewer moments."
The
music award went to Spartans for his composition, ' Life is
a Dream, Opera in Three Acts: Act Two, Concert Version. "Spratlan
composed the opera on a commission from the new Heaven Opera
Theater in the 1970s, but the company went out of business and the
opera has been performed.
