Indian American author Suketu Mehta's much acclaimed book "Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found" failed to win this year's Pulitzer Prize, although it was among the three finalists.
Journalist Steve Coll's "Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001", published by Penguin Press, won in a distinguished book of non-fiction by an American author that is not eligible for consideration in any other category. The winner receives $10,000.
The 89th annual Pulitzer Prizes in Journalism, Letters, Drama and Music, awarded on the recommendation of the Pulitzer Prize Board, were announced Monday by Columbia University. The prize is considered the highest journalistic recognition.
Apart from Mehta, whose book was published by Alfred Knopf, "The Devil's Highway: A True Story" by Luis Alberto Urrea, published by Little, Brown and Company, was also a finalist.
The top newspaper award went to the Los Angeles Times for a distinguished example of meritorious public service by a newspaper through the use of its journalistic resources which, as well as reporting, may include editorials, cartoons, photographs and an online presentation, a gold medal.
The paper won for its "courageous, exhaustively researched series exposing deadly medical problems and racial injustice at a major public hospital."