The 2009 Pulitzer Prize winners and finalists were announced this afternoon at Columbia University.

Among the Pulitzer Prize winners in the Letters categories were: “Olive Kitteridge” by Elizabeth Strout for Fiction; “American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House” by Jon Meacham for Biography; “The Shadow of Sirius” by W.S. Merwin for Poetry; “Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II” by Douglas A. Blackmon for General Nonfiction; and “Ruined” by Lynn Nottage for Drama.

Earlier this year, GalleyCat interviewed the History winner, Annette Gordon-Reed at the National Book Awards. She won both prizes for “The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family.”