Columbia Journalism School and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard announced the four winners and three finalists of the 2025 J. Anthony Lukas Prize Project Awards.
The J. Anthony Lukas Prize Project Awards, established in 1998, recognize excellence in nonfiction that exemplifies the literary grace and commitment to serious research and social concern that characterized the work of the awards’ Pulitzer Prize-winning namesake, J. Anthony Lukas, who died in 1997.
In total, four awards were given across three categories—two awards for J. Anthony Lukas Work-In-Progress Awards, one award for the Mark Lynton History Prize, and one award for the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize
This year, four Penguin Random House titles were recognized! Three PRH titles received awards, and one PRH title was a finalist. Learn more about our winners and finalist below.
Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award
The J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Awards are given annually to aid in the completion of significant works of nonfiction on American topics of political or social concern. Winners are awarded $25,000.
Winners:
The End of the West by Susie Cagle (Random House)
“Susie Cagle is one of the most talented environmental journalists—and artists—working today,” Random House executive editor Molly Turpin said. “I’m so excited and proud to see her work in progress recognized by the Lukas prizes, and I can’t wait for readers to see and understand from her close reporting that California’s deep history of environmental crisis and the hard choices it faces today is really a story that applies to all of us.”
Susie Cagle
© Molly DeCoudreaux
The End of the West tells the story of California at the vanguard of colonialism, capitalism, and now climate change, through the stories of people and places intent on profound adaptation. Cagle spent years reporting from the farthest reaches of the state, from the removal of a dam on the winding and salmon-starved Klamath River at the state’s heavily forested northern edge, to the emerging DIY firefighting crews in the Santa Monica mountains. The End of the West is the culmination of that effort, a rich mosaic of archival research and field reporting, including interviews with more than 300 subjects, told in text and illustration.
Rutter: The Story of an American Underclass by Dan Xin Huang (Knopf)
“Four decades ago, Knopf had the honor of publishing the Pulitzer Prize-winning COMMON GROUND, by J. Anthony Lukas,” Knopf senior editor Quynh Do said. “Upon reading and pre-empting Dan Xin Huang’s Rutter, I immediately saw its potential to become a modern classic in the same vein. We’re so thrilled that the Lukas Prize committee has chosen to recognize and support this important work, and look forward to getting it into the hands of readers.”
Dan Xin Huang
In Rutter: The Story of an American Underclass, a deeply reported, polyphonic narrative, journalist Dan Xin Huang returns to his Appalachian hometown of Athens, Ohio, a community beset by segregation, to offer an exploration of class in America. He gives voice to people on all sides — across generations, political affinities and socioeconomic strata — of a heated, historic school integration debate.
From the same publisher as J. Anthony Lukas’s Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families (Knopf), Rutter depicts the realities of those living at the deep end of our increasingly unequal, rigged system.
Mark Lynton History Prize
The Mark Lynton History Prize is awarded to the book-length work of narrative history, on any subject, that best combines intellectual distinction with felicity of expression. Winners are awarded $10,000.
Winner:
Native Nations: A Millenium in North America by Kathleen DuVal (Random House)
“Kathleen DuVal does something remarkable in Native Nations, balancing an incredible continent-wide sweep and 1000 years of history with the very particular histories and stories of the nations at the heart of her book,” Random House executive editor Molly Turpin said. “The result, I think, is frankly an epic statement on the evolution and resilience of Indigenous power and sovereignty.”
Native Nations: A Millenium in North America is “an essential American history” (The Wall Street Journal) that places the power of Native nations at its center. A millennium ago, North American cities rivaled urban centers around the world in size. Then, following climate change and instability, numerous smaller nations emerged, moving away from rather than toward urbanization. From this urban past, egalitarian government structures, diplomacy and complex economies spread across North America.
Kathleen DuVal
© Laura Wessell
As historian Kathleen DuVal vividly recounts, when Europeans arrived, no civilization came to a halt because of a few wandering explorers, even when the strangers came well-armed. For centuries afterward, Indigenous people maintained an upper hand and used Europeans in pursuit of their own interests. Even as control of the continent shifted toward the United States through the 19th century, Native Nations shows how the sovereignty and influence of Native peoples remained a constant—and will continue far into the future.
Anthony Lukas Book Prize
The J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize recognizes superb examples of nonfiction writing that exemplify the literary grace, commitment to serious research, and original reporting that characterized the distinguished work of the award’s namesake, J. Anthony Lukas. Books must be on a topic of American political or social concern. Winners are awarded $10,000.
Finalist:
The Unclaimed: Abandonment and Hope in the City of Angels by Pamela Prickett and Stefan Timmermans (Crown)
Pamela Prickett
© Jeff Fitlow Photography
“I was gripped by this project from the moment I read the proposal, and this recognition is particularly meaningful, as J. Anthony Lukas was a master of immersion journalism,” Crown VP and editorial director Amanda Cook said. “Pamela and Stefan spent eight years studying the unclaimed of Los Angeles to understand who they are, why they are being abandoned, and what their growing number reveals about our society. It’s a deeply novelistic portrayal that takes us deep into the hidden world of the death bureaucracy and then brings us out into the light, as people gather to honor the dead and compensate for the brokenness that leads 150,000 Americans to go unclaimed each year. It’s a book about death that’s really about life, a ‘work of grace.’”
The Unclaimed is an intimate, deeply moving investigation of an underreported phenomenon—the rising number of unclaimed dead in America today. Each year, up to 150,000 Americans go unclaimed by their relatives after death, leaving local governments to dispose of their bodies.
Stefan Timmermans
© Jeff Fitlow Photography
In this extraordinary work of narrative nonfiction, eight years in the making, sociologists Pamela Prickett and Stefan Timmermans uncover a hidden social world. They follow four individuals in Los Angeles, tracing the poignant, twisting paths that put each at risk of going unclaimed, and introducing us to the scene investigators, notification officers and crematorium workers who care for them when no one else will.
The Unclaimed forces us to confront social ills, from the fracturing of families and the loneliness of cities to the toll of rising inequality. But it is also filled with unexpected moments of tenderness that reaffirm our shared humanity. Beautifully crafted and profoundly empathetic, The Unclaimed urges us to expand our circle of caring—in death and in life.
Congratulations to the 2025 Lukas Prize winners! To view the full list of winners and finalists, visit Columbia Journalism School’s website here.
