Who will be the 2012 Pulitzer Prize Winner for Fiction?

The Preliminary List - December 14, 2011

The Pulitzer Prize for 2012 will be announced in April, 2012, and as we have done for the past four years, we will once again attempt to predict the winner for fiction. We are fortunate that for a fifth year, our research scientist and Modern Firsts/Pulitzer Prize Award Books Collector will conduct the same regression analysis and model that successfully predicted The 2011 Pulitzer Prize Winner.

To get things started, here is the Pulitzer Prize Preliminary Prediction, comprising 15 books that, according to our early regression model, are most likely to win the Pulitzer Prize for 2012. Before listing these books, however, please keep in mind that this is in no way intended to suggest that one of the listed books will absolutely win the Pulitzer. There is still much that cannot be predicted about winning the Pulitzer Prize and lots of other factors that cannot be quantified as variables that certainly contribute to the award process. Readers should only consider this list for what it is intended to be, a fun exercise in second guessing (or pre-guessing) the Pulitzer Prize judges!

While this years analysis is using last years successful new process of weights to account for a given book's performance in the current year awards and the author's past award and nomination history, be forewarned. No model can predict every possibility. Earlier models did not predict Paul Harding's Tinkers in 2010, and would certainly not have predicted the award to Jhumpa Lahiri for Interpreter of Maladies in 2000 or Richard Russo for Empire Falls in 2002. So there is always a chance that a winner will be a complete surprise.

So while we cannot guarantee the prize outcome, we can always count on insightful community discussions. As the saying goes - the journey is its own reward, and over our five-year history this has certainly been the case for this prediction area. The discussions about the books leading up to the announcement are always engaging and interesting.

Here is a our Pulitzer Prize Preliminary Prediction List for 2012:

1.	The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht
2.	The Angel Esmeralda by Don Delillo
3.	The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
4.	Swamplandia by Karen Russell
5.	Ten Thousand Saints by Eleanor Henderson
6.	Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
7.	Train Dreams by Denis Johnson
8.	The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka
9.	Nanjing Requiem by Ha Jin
10.	Chango's Beads and Two-Tone Shoes by William Kennedy
11.	The Astral by Kate Christensen
12.	The Sojourn by Andrew Krivak
13.	Binocular Vision by Edith Pearlman
14.	State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
15.	When the Killing's Done by T.C. Boyle

Note: The books on these lists are not endorsements. We are not stating that any particular book deserves to win the Pulitzer Prize. Nor are we saying what book should win. Rather we are presenting the books we think are most likely to be selected by the Pulitzer organization as the winner based upon notable and best book lists, other awards and award nominations, an author's track record, and the types of books that have won in the past.

Comment on our lists, or offer your own opinion about who you think will win the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: