William Finnegan

A journalist and staff writer at The New Yorker, William Finnegan first became known for his book Crossing the Line: A Year in the Land of Apartheid (Harper & Row, 1986), which is based on his experience as an English teacher in a segregated school in apartheid-era South Africa. That experience transformed Finnegan from a novelist to a political journalist specialising in the South African conflict, the politics of the American South and poverty in the United States. He recently won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography for his book Barbarian Days: A surfing life (Penguin).