By Wu Jinhua

Video = Pulitzer Prize's official YouTube channel

A Korean American author has won the Pulitzer Prize of the U.S. for her nonfiction work.

The Pulitzer Prize Board on May 6 said Ilyon Woo was named a co-winner in the biography category for her book "Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom."

She is the first person of Korean descent to win a Pulitzer in the book, drama or music category.

Her book is about the Crafts, a slaved couple who in 1848 escaped from the slave state of Georgia to the northern U.S. The wife disguised herself as a plantation owner and her husband as her slave.

Last year, The New York Times named the book one of its 10 best of 2023.

Joining Woo as a co-winner in the category was Jonathan Eig, author of "King: A Life," a biography of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

Launched in 1917, the Pulitzer Prize is the most prestigious American award for media including news and photography and the arts like books, drama and musical composition.

jane0614@korea.kr