Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize
{{short description|Annual literary prize for fiction and nonfiction books about heartland American}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}}
The Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize is a literary prize created in 1988 by the newspaper the Chicago Tribune. It is awarded yearly in two categories: Fiction and Nonfiction. These prizes are awarded to books that "reinforce and perpetuate the values of heartland America."[http://www.chicagotribune.com/about/custom/company/chi-pressrelease083006-htmlstory,0,2274648.htmlstory?coll=chi-leftnavcompany-fea "Heartland Prize"], Chicago Tribune.
Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize — Fiction
- 2019: Rebecca Makkai for The Great Believers{{cite news |last1=Taylor |first1=Elizabeth |title=Rebecca Makkai's 'The Great Believers': An empathic novel worthy of the Heartland Prize |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/books/ct-books-heartland-believers-rebecca-makkai-1020-20191012-i4k2gcy6wfcvvktxa33rqoqf6i-story.html |accessdate=25 November 2019 |work=The Chicago Tribune |date=October 11, 2019}}
- 2018: George Saunders for Lincoln in the Bardo
- 2017: Colson Whitehead for The Underground Railroad
- 2016: Jane Smiley for Golden Age[http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/books/ct-ae-1106-heartland-smiley-20161102-story.html Golden Age]
- 2015: Chang-Rae Lee for On Such a Full Sea
- 2014: Daniel Woodrell for The Maid's Version{{cite news |last=Taylor |first=Elizabeth |date=24 October 2014 |title='The Maid's Version' wins 2014 Heartland Prize for Fiction |url=http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/books/ct-prj-maids-version-daniel-woodrell-heartland-pri-20141024-story.html |newspaper=Chicago Tribune |access-date=25 April 2015 }}
- 2013: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie for Americanah
- 2012: Richard Ford for Canada
- 2011: Jonathan Franzen for Freedom
- 2010: E. O. Wilson for Anthill{{Cite web |url=http://www.chicagohumanities.org/Genres/Literature/2010-Chicago-Tribune-Heartland-Prize-Winners.aspx |title=2010 Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize-Winners: E.O. Wilson and Rebecca Skloot | Chicago Humanities Festival |access-date=2011-02-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131105041021/http://chicagohumanities.org/genres/literature/2010-chicago-tribune-heartland-prize-winners.aspx |archive-date=2013-11-05 |url-status=dead }}
- 2009: Jayne Anne Phillips for Lark and Termite{{cite web |url=http://www.chicagohumanities.org/Genres/Literature/2009-Chicago-Tribune-Heartland-Prize-Winners.aspx |title=Chicago Humanities Festival {{!}} 2009 Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize Winners |website=www.chicagohumanities.org |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110505031812/http://www.chicagohumanities.org/Genres/Literature/2009-Chicago-Tribune-Heartland-Prize-Winners.aspx |archive-date=2011-05-05}}
- 2008: Aleksandar Hemon for The Lazarus Project{{cite web |url=http://www.chicagohumanities.org/en/Genres/Literature/2008-Chicago-Tribune-Heartland-Prize-Winners.aspx |title=Chicago Humanities Festival {{!}} Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize Winners 2008 |website=www.chicagohumanities.org |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110908010115/http://www.chicagohumanities.org/en/Genres/Literature/2008-Chicago-Tribune-Heartland-Prize-Winners.aspx |archive-date=2011-09-08}}
- 2007: Robert Olmstead for Coal Black Horse
- 2006: Louise Erdrich for The Painted Drum{{cite web |url=http://www.chicagohumanities.org/en/Genres/Literature/Heartland-Prize-2006-Erdrich-Branch.aspx |title=Chicago Humanities Festival {{!}} Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize, 2006: Taylor Branch and Louise Erdrich |website=www.chicagohumanities.org |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110914095435/http://www.chicagohumanities.org/en/Genres/Literature/Heartland-Prize-2006-Erdrich-Branch.aspx |archive-date=2011-09-14}}
- 2005: Marilynne Robinson for Gilead
- 2004: Ward Just for An Unfinished Season
- 2003: Scott Turow for Reversible Errors
- 2002: Alice Sebold for The Lovely Bones
- 2001: Mona Simpson for Off Keck Road{{cite web |url=http://www.chicagohumanities.org/Genres/Literature/Heartland-Algren-2001-Menand-Simpson-Raboteau.aspx |title=Chicago Humanities Festival {{!}} Menand, Simpson, and Raboteau {{!}} 2001 Chicago Tribune Heartland and Nelson Algren Prizes |website=www.chicagohumanities.org |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111008194500/http://www.chicagohumanities.org/Genres/Literature/Heartland-Algren-2001-Menand-Simpson-Raboteau.aspx |archive-date=2011-10-08}}
- 2000: Jeffery Renard Allen for Rails Under My Back
- 1999: Elizabeth Strout for Amy and Isabelle
- 1998: Jane Hamilton for The Short History of a Prince
- 1997: Charles Frazier for Cold Mountain
- 1996: Antonya Nelson for Talking in Bed
- 1995: William Maxwell for All The Days and Nights
- 1994: Maxine Clair for Rattlebone
- 1993: Annie Proulx for The Shipping News
- 1992: Jane Smiley for A Thousand Acres
- 1991: Kaye Gibbons for A Cure for Dreams
- 1990: Tim O'Brien for The Things They Carried
- 1989: Ward Just for Jack Gance
- 1988: Eric Larsen for An American Memory
Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize — Nonfiction
- 2019: Sarah Smarsh for Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth{{cite news|url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/books/ct-books-heartland-prize-2019-1029-20191028-3wnkvmt2hbahdicom7efuaiqya-story.html |title=Authors Rebecca Makkai, Sarah Smarsh accept 2019 Heartland Prizes |first=Jennifer |last=Day|date=October 28, 2019 |newspaper=Chicago Tribune}}
- 2018: Caroline Fraser for Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder{{cite news|url=http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/books/ct-books-literary-awards-2018-0823-story.html |title=Ron Chernow, George Saunders and Caroline Fraser win 2018 Tribune literary prizes |first=Christen A. |last=Johnson |date=August 23, 2018 |newspaper=Chicago Tribune}}
- 2017: Matthew Desmond for Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City{{cite web|url=https://www.librarything.com/bookaward/Heartland+Prize |title=Book awards: Heartland Prize |website=LibraryThing |accessdate=10 September 2018}}
- 2016: Margo Jefferson for Negroland: A Memoir {{Cite web|url=http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/books/ct-ae-1106-heartland-jefferson-20161102-story.html|title = Margo Jefferson memoir 'Negroland' a resonant Heartland Prize winner|website = Chicago Tribune}}
- 2015: Danielle Allen for Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality
- 2014: Jesmyn Ward for Men We Reaped{{cite news |last=Taylor |first=Elizabeth |date=23 October 2014 |title='Men We Reaped' wins 2014 Heartland Prize for Fiction |url=http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/books/ct-prj-men-we-reaped-jesmyn-ward-20141023-story.html |newspaper=Chicago Tribune |access-date=25 April 2015 }}
- 2013: Thomas Dyja for The Third Coast: When Chicago Built the American Dream{{cite web |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/2013/11/03/thomas-dyjas-the-third-coast-awarded-nonfiction-heartland-prize/ |title=Thomas Dyja's 'The Third Coast' awarded nonfiction Heartland Prize - Chicago Tribune |website=Chicago Tribune |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131105015145/http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-11-03/features/ct-prj-1103-third-coast-thomas-dyja-20131103_1_thomas-dyja-mid-20th-century-chicago-chuck-berry |archive-date=2013-11-05}}
- 2012: Paul Hendrickson for Hemingway's Boat: Everything He Loved in Life and Lost 1934-1961
- 2011: Isabel Wilkerson for The Warmth of Other Suns{{cite web |url=http://www.chicagohumanities.org/Genres/Literature/2011f-2011-Chicago-Tribune-Heartland-Prize-Winners.aspx |title=Chicago Humanities Festival {{!}} 2011 Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize Winners {{!}} Jonathan Franzen {{!}} Isabel Wilkerson |website=www.chicagohumanities.org |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120103155041/http://www.chicagohumanities.org/Genres/Literature/2011f-2011-Chicago-Tribune-Heartland-Prize-Winners.aspx |archive-date=2012-01-03}}
- 2010: Rebecca Skloot for The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks{{cite web |url=http://www.chicagohumanities.org/Genres/Literature/2010-Chicago-Tribune-Heartland-Prize-Winners.aspx |title=E. O. Wilson and Rebecca Skloot: 2010 Chicago Tribune Heartland Prizes |work=chicagohumanities.org |date=2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131105041021/http://chicagohumanities.org/genres/literature/2010-chicago-tribune-heartland-prize-winners.aspx |archive-date= November 5, 2013 |url-status=dead |accessdate=May 3, 2016}}
- 2009: Nick Reding for Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town
- 2008: Garry Wills for Head and Heart: American Christianities and What the Gospels Meant
- 2007: Orville Vernon Burton for The Age of Lincoln
- 2006: Taylor Branch for At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years 1965-1968
- 2005: Kevin Boyle for Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race Civil Rights and Murder in the Jazz Age
- 2004: Ann Patchett for Truth & Beauty: A Friendship
- 2003: Paul Hendrickson for Sons of Mississippi: A Story of Race and Its Legacy
- 2002: Studs Terkel for Will the Circle Be Unbroken?: Reflections on Death Rebirth and Hunger for a Faith
- 2001: Louis Menand for The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America
- 2000: Zachary Karabell for The Last Campaign: How Harry Truman Won the 1948 Election
- 1999: Jay Parini for Robert Frost: A Life
- 1998: Alex Kotlowitz for The Other Side of the River: A Story of Two Towns A Death and America's Dilemma
- 1997: Thomas Lynch for The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade
- 1996: Jonathan Harr for A Civil Action
- 1995: Richard Stern for A Sistermony
- 1994: Henry Louis Gates Jr. for Colored People: A Memoir
- 1993: Norman Maclean for Young Men and Fire
- 1992: Melissa Fay Greene for Praying for Sheetrock: A Work of Non-Fiction
- 1991: William Cronon for Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West
- 1990: Michael Dorris for The Broken Cord: A Family's Ongoing Struggle with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
- 1989: Joseph Epstein for Partial Payments: Essays on Writers and Their Lives
- 1988: Don Katz for The Big Store: Inside the Crisis and Revolution at Sears