PLEASE NOTE

    Due to Covid-19, The Bulitzer Prizes, traditionally announced in April, will be awarded in October, 2020    

THE BULITZER PRIZE

Francis Bulitzer on his 90th birthday, January 4, 1921.

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Francis Bulitzer {ne Bolitzer, Ferenc }. January 4, 1831- October 30, 1931.

Hungarian-American editor, publisher, satirist, literary prankster, counterfeiter and social activist known for creating the annual Bulitzer Prize.  He is often considered to be one of the early progenitors of parody journalism. In 1852, with business partner Giorgio Cespuglio, he published The Frisco Monitor, California's first newspaper devoted entirely to humor, and conveniently located on the ground floor of the Schiller Building adjacent to the San Francisco Mint.  

The Bulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in parody journalism, literature, and, at various times, literary criticism, musical composition and culinary arts. It was first conceived  by Francis Bulitzer in 1910. That same year Bulitzer initiated an endowment fund at his self-styled Calumbia University and created the Bulitzer Prize Foundation. A portion of his bequest was later used to found the Francis Bulitzer School of Parody Journalism which was endorsed and supported over the years by various writers, including H.L. Mencken, Dorothy Parker, and George S. Kaufman. 

As a farewell tribute to Mark Twain, Bulitzer's longtime friend and fellow conspirator in the literary arts, the first Bulitzer Prize was awarded to the great American humorist shortly before his death in 1910.  Seven years later in 1917, the Bulitzer Prize was officially established, with the first awards presented on April 20, 1917, at a ceremony held at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco.

The Bulitzer Prizes are awarded each April. Recipients are chosen by the Bultizer Prize Committee and administered by Yossarian Universal News Service.