• Public Service:
  • Des Moines Register, For reporting by Jane Schorer that, with the victim's consent, named a woman who had been raped—which prompt widespread reconsideration of the traditional media practice of concealing the identity of rape victims.
• Spot News Reporting:
  • Staff of The Miami Herald, For stories profiling a local cult leader, his followers, and their links to several area murders.
• Investigative Reporting:
  • Joseph T. Hallinan and Susan M. Headden of The Indianapolis Star, For their shocking series on medical malpractice in the state.
• Explanatory Journalism:
  • Susan C. Faludi of The Wall Street Journal, For a report on the leveraged buy-out of Safeway Stores, Inc., that revealed the human costs of high finance.
• Beat Reporting:
  • Natalie Angier of The New York Times, For her compelling and illuminating reports on a variety of scientific topics.
• National Reporting:
  • Marjie Lundstrom and Rochelle Sharpe of Gannett News Service, For reporting that disclosed hundreds of child abuse-related deaths go undetected each year as a result of errors by medical examiners.
• International Reporting:
  • Serge Schmemann of The New York Times, For his coverage of the reunification of Germany.
• International Reporting:
  • Caryle Murphy of The Washington Post, For her dispatches from occupied Kuwait, some of which she filed while in hiding from Iraqi authorities.
• Feature Writing:
  • Sheryl James of the St. Petersburg Times, For a compelling series about a mother who abandoned her newborn child and how it affected her life and those of others.
• Commentary:
  • Jim Hoagland of The Washington Post, For searching and prescient columns on events leading up to the Gulf War and on the political problems of Mikhail Gorbachev.
• Criticism:
  • David Shaw of the Los Angeles Times, For his critiques of the way in which the media, including his own paper, reported the McMartin Pre-School child molestation case.
• Editorial Writing:
  • Ron Casey, Harold Jackson and Joey Kennedy of The Birmingham News, For their editorial campaign analyzing inequities in Alabama's tax system and proposing needed reforms.
• Editorial Cartooning:
  • Jim Borgman of The Cincinnati Enquirer
• Spot News Photography:
  • Greg Marinovich of Associated Press, For a series of photographs of supporters of South Africa's African National Congress brutally murdering a man they believed to be a Zulu spy.
• Feature Photography:
  • William Snyder of The Dallas Morning News, For his photographs of ill and orphaned children living in subhuman conditions in Romania.

• Fiction:
  • Rabbit At Rest by John Updike (Alfred A. Knopf)
• History:
  • A Midwife's Tale by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich (Alfred A. Knopf)
• Biography or Autobiography:
  • Jackson Pollock: An American Saga by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith (Clarkson N. Potter)
• Poetry:
  • Near Changes by Mona Van Duyn (Alfred A. Knopf)
• General Non-Fiction:
  • The Ants by Bert Holldobler and Edward O. Wilson (Belknap/Harvard University Press)

• Drama:
  • Lost in Yonkers by Neil Simon (Random House)
• Music:
  • Symphony by Shulamit Ran (Theodore Presser Company)

Commissioned by The Philadelphia Orchestra and premiered by that orchestra on October 19, 1990.

• "Winners of the 1991 Pulitzer Prizes in the Arts and Journalism". N.Y. / Region. The New York Times (Late Edition - Final ed.). New York. 10 April 1991. ISSN 0362-4331. OCLC 1645522. Archived from the original on 7 November 2014. Retrieved 8 November 2014.
• Brennan, Elizabeth A.; Clarage, Elizabeth C. (1999). Who's who of Pulitzer Prize winners. Phoenix: Oryx Press. ISBN 9781573561112. OCLC 40126493 – via Google Books.

• Official website