The Booker Prize is possibly the biggest literary award in the English and certainly gets the biggest publicity. However, Donna Tartt, who won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for her novel, The Goldfinch, possibly sold more copies of her book than Richard Flanagan, who won the 2014 Booker Prize for The Narrow Road to the Deep North. But the two previous Booker winners — Eleanor Catton, Luminaries (2013) and Hillary Mantel, Bring Up the Bodies (2012) — were blockbusters.

With the Pulitzers about to be announced, let’s look at previous Booker and Pulitzer winners. (Post updated to include 2015 Pulitzer winner for fiction.) The Booker winner will be announced on October 13. That’s a long time away. But the longlist will be announced on July 29 when the speculation will begin. That will intensify when the shortlist is made public on September 15. The Booker Prize Foundation loves publicity. The Pulitzers, administered by Columbia University, are a quieter affair. Everything is on the QT. Even the finalists are not known before the prizes are announced. That’s when everyone is named — the winners and the rest.

The list stops at 1969 when the Booker Prize was given for the first time. Pulitzers have been around much longer.

Winners since 2000
	Booker winners	Pulitzer winners
2015		Anthony Doerr All the Light We Cannot See
2014	Richard Flanagan The Narrow Road to the Deep North	Donna Tartt The Goldfinch
2013	Eleanor Catton The Luminaries	Adam Johnson The Orphan Master’s Son
2012	Hillary Mantel Bring Up the Bodies	No award
2011	Julian Barnes The Sense of an Ending	Jennifer Egan A Visit from the Goon Squad
2010	Howard Jacobson The Finkler Question	Paul Harding Tinkers
2009	Hillary Mantel Wolf Hall	Elizabeth Strout Oliver Kitteridge
2008	Aravind Adiga The White Tiger	Juniot Diaz The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
2007	Anne Enright The Gathering	Cormac McCarthy The Road
2006	Kiran Desai The Inheritance of Loss	Geraldine Brooks March
2005	John Banville The Sea	Marylynne Robinson Gilead
2004	Allan Holinghurst The Line of Beauty	Edward P Jones The Known World
2003	DBC Pierre Vernon God Little	Jeffrey Euginides Middlesex
2002	Yann Martel Life of Pi	Richard Russo Empire Falls
2001	Peter Carey True History of the Kelly Gang	Michael Chabon The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
2000	Margaret Atwood The Blind Assassin	Jhumpa Lahiri Inspector of Maladies

Let’s look at earlier winners.

1990-2000
	Booker winners	Pulitzer winners
1999	JM Coetzee Disgrace	Michael Cunningham The Hours
1998	Ian McEwan Amsterdam	Philip Roth American Pastoral
1997	Arundhati Roy The God of Small Things	Martin Dressler The Tale of an American Dreamer
1996	Graham Swift Last Orders	Richard Ford Independence Day
1995	Pat Barker The Ghost Road	Carol Shields The Stone Diaries
1994	James Kelman How Late It Was, How Late	E Annie Proulx The Shipping News
1993	Roddy Doyle, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha	Robert Olen Butler A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
1992	Michael Ondaatje The English Patient and Barry Unsworth Sacred Hunger (joint winners)	Jane Smiley A Thousand Acres
1991	Ben Okri The Famished Road	John Updike Rabbit at Rest
1990	AS Byatt Possession	Oscar Hijuelos The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love

Let’s go back even further.

1980-1989
	Booker winners	Pulitzer winners
1989	Kazuo Ishiguro The Remains of the Day	Anne Tyler Breathing Lessons
1988	Peter Carey Oscar and Lucinda	Toni Morrison Beloved
1987	Penelope Lively Moon Tiger	Peter Taylor A Summons to Memphis
1986	Kingsley Amis The Old Devils	Larry McMurtry Lonesome Dove
1985	Keri Hulme The Bone People	Alison Lurie Foreign Affairs
1984	Anita Brookner Hotel du Lac	William Kennedy Ironweed
1983	JM Coetzee Life and Times of Michael K	Alice Walker The Color Purple
1982	Thomas Keneally Schindler’s Ark	John Updike Rabbit is Rich
1981	Salman Rushdie Midnight’s Children	John Kennedy Toole A Confederacy of Dunces
1980	William Golding Rites of Passage	Norman Mailor The Executioner’s Song

We will stop at 1969, when the Booker Prize was given for the first time. The Pulitzer for fiction has been given since 1948 when James Michener’s Tales of the South Pacific won the award.

1970-1979
	Booker winners	Pulitzer winners
1979	Penelope Fitzgerald Offshore	John Cheever The Stories of John Cheever
1978	Iris Murdoch The Sea, The Sea	James Alan McPherson Elbow Room
1977	Paul Scott Staying On	No award
1976	David Storey Saville	Saul Bellow Humboldt’s Gift
1975	Ruth Prawer Jhabvala Heat and Dust	Michael Shaara The Killer Angels
1974	Stanley Middleton Holiday and Nadine Gordimer The Conservationist (joint winners)	No award
1973	JG Farrell The Siege of Krishnapur	Eudora Welty The Optimist’s Daughter
1972	John Berger G	Wallace Stegner Angle of Repose
1971	VS Naipaul In a Free State	No award
1970	Bernice Rubens The Elected Member	Jean Stafford Collected Stories
1969	PH Newby Something to Answer For	N Scott Momaday House Made of Dawn