iSchool alumnus and New York Times bestselling author Daniel Kraus (MSLIS '05) has won the 2026 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction for Angel Down. Kraus, a prolific writer whose works span several genres—children's fiction, horror, science fiction, graphic novels, and comics—learned the good news last week.
"The Pulitzer was not something that I had given any thought to, ever. It was completely out of the blue," he said. "It makes me feel good about the strange career I've had."
The prize is awarded for distinguished fiction published during the year by an American author, preferably related to American life, and includes a $15,000 award. The Pulitzer Prize Board praised Angel Down as "A breathless novel of World War I, a stylistic tour-de-force that blends such genres as allegory, magical realism and science fiction into a cohesive whole, told in a single sentence."
In the novel, five American soldiers venture into No Man's Land to euthanize a wounded comrade. Instead of finding a man in need of mercy, however, the soldiers discover a fallen angel who could hold the key to ending the war.
While Kraus has admittedly been interested in World War I for a long time, he can't pinpoint when and why he had a vision of an angel being struck by artillery.
"The weaponry used in that war was so much more advanced than in any previous conflict, to the point that people didn't really know what they were doing," he said. "Maybe part of the genesis of the idea [for the novel] was that we didn’t know back then what we were doing either, and that we were unsettling this realm where heavenly creatures had always been able to live peacefully and were invading their space."
The brutal nature of World War I also influenced Kraus' writing style for Angel Down. While the novel is 304 pages, it contains but a single sentence.
"I started writing the book in a normal style, but it didn't feel like it was conveying the breakneck pace that I wanted it to, in the sense of things that just keep happening," said Kraus. "Eventually, I thought that the book is sort of about how World War I began the cycle of industrialized warfare, which means that it became a financial reason to keep wars going perpetually. So, I thought I could write the book so that the whole book was a loop and that once you start the book, in a way, you can never escape it. You are locked into this circle that reflects how we’re locked in this cycle of wars."
Kraus writes for TV and film as well as writing novels. The film production company Imagine Entertainment has the rights to the script he wrote for Angel Down and is currently interviewing directors for the project. The company also produced Whalefall, an upcoming thriller based on the 2023 novel by Kraus, who co-wrote the script with director and producer Brian Duffield.
In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, Kraus' honors include the Bram Stoker Award, Scribe Award, Alex Award, and two Odyssey Awards. His books have appeared multiple times as Library Guild selections, YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association) Best Fiction for Young Adults, and more. His work has been translated into over 25 languages.