Andrea Elliott, a visiting journalist at the Russell Sage Foundation in fall 2016, has been awarded the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction. The citation recognizes Elliott’s book, Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City (Random House), calling it “an affecting, deeply reported account of a girl who comes of age during New York City’s homeless crisis – a portrait of resilience amid institutional failure that successfully merges literary narrative with policy analysis.” The book, which Elliott wrote in part during her time at RSF, is an expansion of her 2013 five-part series for The New York Times. The series follows 11-year-old Dasani, a homeless girl living in a city run shelter in Brooklyn, New York. A follow-up article was published in The New York Times Magazine. Invisible Child was the Winner of 2022 Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism and the 2022 J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize and was a finalist for the 2021 PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award.
Of her time in residence at Russell Sage, Elliott says: “This book was born at Russell Sage. I had the great fortune of landing there early in the process, when I had just left the newsroom and wanted to reach beyond traditional reporting in pursuit of history and big ideas. And for most journalists, that’s a big leap. But I took it at Russell Sage because I was surrounded by thinkers who showed me the way – ethnographer and political scientist Lee Ann Fujii, economists Greg Duncan and Sheldon Danziger, researchers Claire Gabriel and Katie Winograd. These people not only shaped my book, being in their midst taught me to think about field work and storytelling in a brave new way. I never felt like my fellowship officially ended. I had joined a community I called my ‘brain trust’ and they helped me see this book through.”
Andrea Elliott is an investigative reporter for The New York Times. Since joining The Times in 2003, Elliott has specialized in long-form, immersive journalism projects. She has previously been awarded a Pulitzer Prize in Feature Writing, a George Polk award, an Overseas Press Club award, and other honors for her work. Prior to joining The New York Times, Elliott was a reporter at The Miami Herald. She is a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and received her B.A. from Occidental College.
Read more and purchase a copy of Invisible Child.
Learn more about RSF’s Visiting Journalist program.