The awards were announced Friday during a remote ceremony that honored the best work in journalism and the arts in 2020, a year defined in part by the police killing of George Floyd and the protests and reckoning which followed.
He began working on the Malcolm X book in 1990 and compiled more than 100 hours of interviews, including with family members of the late Black activist, before he died.
The Paynes’ collaboration is also the second Malcolm X biography to win a Pulitzer for an author who didn’t live to see his book released.
With most theaters closed during the pandemic, the Pulitzer Prize Board altered the requirements for this year’s drama award, allowing postponed or cancelled works, as well as plays produced and performed in places other than theaters, including online, outside or in site-specific venues during calendar 2020.