"Po kom zvonit kolokol" Ernest Xeminguey: The fiction jury had recommended the 1941 award go to Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls. Although the Pulitzer Board initially agreed with that judgment, the president of Columbia University, Nicholas Murray Butler, persuaded the board to reverse its judgment because he deemed the novel offensive, and no award was given that year. McDowell, Edwin. „Publishing: Pulitzer Controversies.“ New York Times 11 May 1984: C26.
Kurgu dalının jürisi oybirliğiyle ödülün Thomas Pynchon'un Gravity’s Rainbow adlı eserine verilmesini önerdi, fakat son kararı veren Pulitzer kurulu 1974’te bu dalda ödül vermemeyi kararlaştırdı.