Browse All Work by DLPP Recipients and Runners-Up

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Rubbish!: The Archaeology of Garbage

William Rathje and Cullen Murphy
1992

A witty and erudite investigation of the geography, history, composition, mythology, demographics, and widespread misperception of garbage--and the odd behavior of those who have made garbage what it is today.
City of Thorns: Nine Lives in the World’s Largest Refugee Camp

Ben Rawlence
2016

Combining intimate storytelling with investigative journalism, City of Thorns takes us inside Dadaab, the world's biggest and most notorious refugee camp, through the stories of the people who live there. For readers of Behind the Beautiful Forevers and What Is the What. To charity workers, Dadaab refugee camp is a humanitarian crisis; to the Kenyan government, it's a "nursery for terrorists"; to the western media, it's a dangerous no-go area; but to its half a million residents, it is their last resort. Situated hundreds of miles from any other settlement, in the midst of the inhospitable desert of northern Kenya where only thorn bushes grow, Dadaab is a city like no other. Its buildings are made from mud and its citizens survive on rations and luck. Over the course of four years, Ben Rawlence became a first-hand witness to a strange and desperate limbo-land, getting to know many of the individuals who have sought sanctuary in the camp. Among them are Guled, a former child soldier who lives for soccer; Nisho, who scrapes together an existence by pushing a wheelbarrow and dreaming of riches; Tawane, the indomitable youth leader; and schoolgirl Kheyro, whose future hangs upon her education. With deep compassion and rare eloquence, Rawlence interweaves the stories of nine individuals to show what life is like in the camp and to sketch the wider political forces that keep the refugees trapped there. Lucid, vivid and illuminating, City of Thorns is an urgent human story with profound international repercussions, brought to life through the people who call Dadaab home.
Radio Congo: Signals of Hope from Africa’s Deadliest War

Ben Rawlence
2012

Ben Rawlence sets out to gather the news that never travels far--the news of the uneasy peace being made in the towns of Congo's silent quarter. Rather than taking the direct flight suggested by aid workers and mercenaries, he travels by foot, motorbike, and boat, taking his time to meet the people who are making a new life in one of the world's most dangerous places. He introduces us to a guerrilla turned army officer; Lebanese cousins, young tin traders shipped to Africa by their family; a talk-show host who dispenses counsel and courage in equal measure; and a priest who explains the price of beer and normality.
In the Place of Justice: A Story of Punishment and Redemption

Wilbert Rideau
2010

Rideau brings to vivid life the world of the infamous Angola penitentiary and his long struggle for justice, giving his readers a searing expose of the failures of our legal system framed within his own dramatic tale of how he found meaning, purpose, and hope in prison.
Life Sentences: Rage and Survival Behind Bars

Wilbert Rideau and Ron Wikberg
1992

Drawing on their award-winning reporting for the Louisiana State Penitentiary's uncensored newsmagazine, The Angolite, Wilbert Rideau and Ron Wikberg present the stark reality of life behind bars and the human, political, and fiscal costs of our long-running war on crime. Annotation. Drawing on their award-winning reporting for the Louisiana State Penitentiary's uncensored newsmagazine, The Angolite, Wilbert Rideau and Ron Wikberg present the stark reality of life behind bars and the human, political, and fiscal costs of our long-running war on crime.
Contested Land, Contested Memory: Israel's Jews and Arabs and the Ghosts of Catastrophe

Jo Roberts
2013

1948: As Jewish refugees, survivors of the Holocaust, struggle toward the new State of Israel, Arab refugees are fleeing, many under duress. Sixty years later, the memory of trauma has shaped both peoples' collective understanding of who they are.

After a war, the victors write history. How was the story of the exiled Palestinians erased – from textbooks, maps, even the land? How do Jewish and Palestinian Israelis now engage with the histories of the Palestinian Nakba ("Catastrophe") and the Holocaust, and how do these echo through the political and physical landscapes of their country?

Vividly narrated, with extensive original interview material, Contested Land, Contested Memory examines how these tangled histories of suffering inform Jewish and Palestinian-Israeli lives today, and frame Israel's possibilities for peace.
Jack: A Novel

Marilynne Robinson
9-29-2020

Marilynne Robinson’s mythical world of Gilead, Iowa—the setting of her novels Gilead, Home, and Lila, and now Jack—and its beloved characters have illuminated and interrogated the complexities of American history, the power of our emotions, and the wonders of a sacred world. Jack is Robinson’s fourth novel in this now-classic series. In it, Robinson tells the story of John Ames Boughton, the prodigal son of Gilead’s Presbyterian minister, and his romance with Della Miles, a high school teacher who is also the child of a preacher. Their deeply felt, tormented, star-crossed interracial romance resonates with all the paradoxes of American life, then and now.
What Are We Doing Here?

Marilynne Robinson
2018

A new essay collection assesses today's political climate and the mysteries of faith, from the influence of intellectual minds on society's political consciousness to the way that beauty informs and disciplines daily life.
The Givenness of Things: Essays

Marilynne Robinson
2015

The spirit of our times can appear to be one of joyless urgency. As a culture we have become less interested in the exploration of the glorious mind, and more interested in creating technologies for material well-being. But while cultural pessimism is always fashionable, there is still much to give us hope. In The Givenness of Things, Marilynne Robinson delivers an impassioned critique of our contemporary society while arguing that reverence must be given to who we are and what we are: creatures of singular interest and value, despite our errors and depredations. Robinson has plumbed the depths of the human spirit in her award-winning novels, and in her new essay collection she trains her incisive mind on our modern predicament and the mysteries of faith. These seventeen essays examine the ideas that have inspired and provoked one of our finest writers throughout her life. Whether she is investigating how the work of the great thinkers of the past--Calvin, Locke, Bonhoeffer, and Shakespeare--can infuse our lives, or calling attention to the rise of the self-declared élite in American religious and political life, Robinson's peerless prose and boundless humanity are on display.
Lila: A Novel

Marilynne Robinson
2014

Lila, homeless and alone after years of roaming the countryside, steps inside a small-town Iowa church -- the only available shelter from the rain -- and ignites a romance and a debate that will reshape her life. She becomes the wife of a minister, John Ames, and begins a new existence while trying to make sense of the days of suffering that preceded her newfound security. Neglected as a toddler, Lila was rescued by Doll, a canny young drifter, and brought up by her in a hardscrabble childhood. Together they crafted a life on the run, living hand-to-mouth with nothing but their sisterly bond and a ragged blade to protect them. But despite bouts of petty violence and moments of desperation, their shared life is laced with moments of joy and love. When Lila arrives in Gilead, she struggles to harmonize the life of her makeshift family and their days of hardship with the gentle Christian worldview of her husband that paradoxically judges those she loves.
When I Was a Child I Read Books: Essays

Marilynne Robinson
2012

In this new collection of incisive essays, Robinson returns to the themes which have preoccupied her work: the role of faith in modern life, the inadequacy of fact, the contradictions inherent in human nature.
Absence of Mind: The Dispelling of Inwardness from the Modern Myth of the Self

Marilynne Robinson
2010

In this ambitious book, acclaimed writer Marilynne Robinson applies her astute intellect to some of the most vexing topics in the history of human thought-- science, religion, and consciousness. Crafted with the same care and insight as her award-winning novels, Absence of Mind challenges postmodern atheists who crusade against religion under the banner of science. In Robinson's view, scientific reasoning does not denote a sense of logical infallibility, as thinkers like Richard Dawkins might suggest. Instead, in its purest form, science represents a search for answers. It engages the problem of knowledge, an aspect of the mystery of consciousness, rather than providing a simple and final model of reality.
Home: A Novel

Marilynne Robinson
2009

Glory Boughton, aged thirty-eight, has returned to Gilead to care for her dying father. Soon her brother, Jack--the prodigal son of the family, gone for twenty years--comes home too, looking for refuge and trying to make peace with a past littered with tormenting trouble and pain.
Gilead: A Novel

Marilynne Robinson
2004

As the Reverend John Ames approaches the hour of his own death, he writes a letter to his son chronicling three previous generations of his family, a story that stretches back to the Civil War and reveals uncomfortable family secrets.
The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought

Marilynne Robinson
1998

In the tradition of nineteenth-century novelists who turned to the essay, Marilynne Robinson offers an authoritative approach to refining the ideas our culture has handed down to us. Whether considering how the McGuffey readers were inspired by Midwestern abolitionists; how creationism, "long owned by the Religious Right," has spurred on contemporary Darwinism; or how John Calvin, who was a Frenchman in Geneva, points to America's continental origins, Robinson writes with great conviction.
Mother Country: Britain, the Welfare State, and Nuclear Pollution

Marilynne Robinson
1989

At the time when Robinson wrote this book, the largest known source of radioactive contamination of the world's environment was a government-owned nuclear plant called Sellafield, not far from Wordsworth's cottage in the Lakes District; one child in sixty was dying from leukemia in the village closest to the plant. The central question of this eloquently impassioned book is: How can a country that we persist in calling a welfare state consciously risk the lives of its people for profit?
Housekeeping: A Novel

Marilynne Robinson
1980

A modern classic, Housekeeping is the story of Ruth and her younger sister, Lucille, who grow up haphazardly, first under the care of their competent grandmother, then of two comically bumbling great-aunts, and finally of Sylvie, their eccentric and remote aunt. The family house is in the small Far West town of Fingerbone set on a glacial lake, the same lake where their grandfather died in a spectacular train wreck, and their mother drove off a cliff to her death. It is a town "chastened by an outsized landscape and extravagant weather, and chastened again by an awareness that the whole of human history had occurred elsewhere." Ruth and Lucille's struggle toward adulthood beautifully illuminates the price of loss and survival, and the dangerous and deep undertow of transience.
Second Wind: The Memoirs of an Opinionated Man

William F. Russell and Taylor Branch
1979

Autobiography of the star basketball player who was voted Most Valuable Player in the NBA five times.
Voices from the Pandemic: Americans Tell Their Stories of Crisis, Courage and Resilience

Eli Saslow
9-28-2021

From Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter Eli Saslow, a powerful portrait of a country grappling with the pandemic, told through voices of people from all across America The Covid-19 pandemic was a world-shattering event, affecting everyone in the nation. From its first ominous stirrings, renowned journalist Eli Saslow began interviewing a cross-section of Americans, capturing their experiences in real time: An exhausted and anguished EMT risking his life in New York City; a grocery store owner feeding his neighborhood for free in locked-down New Orleans; an overwhelmed coroner in Georgia; a Maryland restaurateur forced to close his family business after forty-six years; an Arizona teacher wrestling with her fears and her obligations to her students; rural citizens adamant that the whole thing is a hoax, and retail workers attacked for asking people to wear masks; patients struggling to breathe and doctors desperately trying to save them. Through Saslow's masterful, empathetic interviewing, we are given a kaleidoscopic picture of a people dealing with the unimaginable. These deeply personal accounts make for cathartic reading, as we see Americans at their worst, and at their resilient best.
Ten Letters: The Stories Americans Tell Their President

Eli Saslow
2011

Every day, President Obama read ten of the letters he received from citizens across America. Here are ten of those letters, along with President Obama's responses and the stories behind them.

The letters come from people of all ages, walks of life, and political points of view. Some are heartbreaking, some angry, some hopeful. Indeed, Obama reads as many letters addressed “Dear Jackass” as “Dear Mr. President.” Eli Saslow, a young and rising star at the Washington Post, became fascinated by the power of these letters and set out to find the stories behind them.
Rising out of Hatred: The Awakening of a Former White Nationalist

Eli E. Saslow
9-18-2018

Derek Black grew up at the epicenter of white nationalism. His father founded Stormfront, the largest racist community on the Internet. His godfather, David Duke, was a KKK Grand Wizard. By the time Derek turned 19, he had become an elected politician with his own daily radio show - already regarded as the "the leading light" of the burgeoning white nationalist movement. "We can infiltrate," Derek once told a crowd of white nationalists. "We can take the country back."

Then he went to college. Derek had been homeschooled by his parents, steeped in the culture of white supremacy, and he had rarely encountered diverse perspectives or direct outrage against his beliefs. At New College of Florida, he continued to broadcast his radio show in secret each morning, living a double life until a classmate uncovered his identity and sent an email to the entire school: "Derek Black...white supremacist, radio host...New College student???"

The ensuing uproar overtook one of the most liberal colleges in the country. Some students protested Derek's presence on campus, forcing him to reconcile for the first time with the ugliness his beliefs. Other students found the courage to reach out to him, including an Orthodox Jew who invited Derek to attend weekly Shabbat dinners. It was because of those dinners - and the wide-ranging relationships formed at that table - that Derek started to question the science, history, and prejudices behind his worldview. As white nationalism infiltrated the political mainstream, Derek decided to confront the damage he had done.

Rising out of Hatred tells the story of how white-supremacist ideas migrated from the far-right fringe to the White House through the intensely personal saga of one man who eventually disavowed everything he was taught to believe, at tremendous personal cost. With great empathy and narrative verve, Eli Saslow asks what Derek's story can tell us about America's increasingly divided nature. This is a book to help us understand the American moment and to help us better understand one another.
American Hunger: The Pulitzer Prize-Winning Washington Post Series

Eli E. Saslow
9-2-2014

In this Pulitzer Prize-winning collection, Washington Post reporter Eli Saslow traveled across the country over the course of a year—from Florida and Texas to Rhode Island and Tennessee—to examine the personal and political implications and repercussions of America's growing food stamp program.

Saslow shows us the extraordinary impact the arrival of food stamps has each month on a small town's struggling economy, the difficult choices our representatives face in implementing this $78-billion program affecting millions of Americans, and the challenges American families, senior citizens, and children encounter every day in ensuring they have enough, and sometimes even anything to eat. These unsettling and eye-opening stories make for required reading, providing nuance and understanding to the complex matters of American poverty.
Sean Scully: Walls of Aran

Sean Scully and Colm Tóibín
2007

Sean Scully is one of the best-loved abstract painters. This book brings together his photographs of the dry stone walls found on the Aran Islands, off the west coast of Ireland.
Kingdoms in the Air: Dispatches from the Far Away

Bob Shacochis
2016

Bob Shacochis brings together the very best of his culture and travel essays in one livewire collection that spans his global adventures and his life passions - from surfing, to his obsession with the South American Dorado, to the time he went bushwhacking in Mozambique. Replete with Shacochis's signature swagger, humour, and crystalline wisdom, this is a majestic and essential collection from one of our most important writers.
The Woman Who Lost Her Soul

Bob Shacochis
2013

This novel spans five decades and three continents; it traces a global lineage of political, cultural, and personal tumult from World War II to the present. During a time of brutal guerrilla warfare and civilian kidnappings, the humanitarian lawyer Tom Harrington travels to Haiti to investigate the murder of a beautiful, seductive photojournalist, Jackie Scott. There he is confronted with a dangerous landscape of poverty, corruption, and voodoo. The story brings to life an intricate portrait of catastrophic events that led up to the war on terror and the America we are today.