Explore Harvard's Nieman network Nieman Fellowships Nieman Lab Nieman Reports Nieman Storyboard
 
Print

About J. Anthony Lukas

The J. Anthony Lukas Prizes are named for a winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, one as a newspaperman and the other as a book author.

Lukas' first Pulitizer, in 1968, was for "The Two Worlds of Linda Fitzpatrick," an article in The New York Times on the life and, eventually, death of a wealthy Connecticut teenager involved in drugs and the hippie movement. The second Pulitzer, in 1986, was for his book, "Common Ground," about Boston school desegregation.

J. Anthony Lukas began his newspaper career at The Harvard Crimson. After he won his first Pulitzer, he returned to Harvard as a Nieman Fellow in the Class of 1969. Even with his success he did not like the demands of daily journalism and turned to writing books.

Lukas committed suicide June 5, 1997, at the age of 64, shortly after completing "Big Trouble," concerning the trial of a labor leader for the murder of a former Idaho governor at the turn of the century. Despite praise, Lukas, a brooding, intense perfectionist, expressed dissatisfaction with the book. Earlier he had written "Nightmare," about the Nixon years.

At his funeral Cassandra Twyman who, as a black school girl had figured prominently in "Common Ground," said: "He wrote what I said, not the opposite, exactly the way I said it. I was scared. I was frightened."

After his death Anne Bernays, the novelist, wrote that if she were asked to name one characteristic that belonged to Tony she would say "his absolute lack of guile, agenda, pretentiousness. He never tried to impress or mess around with you. Tony was, above all, straightforward."