Two works published by “The New Yorker” received Pulitzer Prizes today—and one of the winning stories is by a library worker.
Medar de la Cruz, an artist who works as a jail-and-prison-services assistant for Brooklyn Public Library, received the Pulitzer in the illustrated-reporting-and-commentary category for “The Diary of a Rikers Island Library Worker,” which takes readers inside New York City’s largest jail complex. His black-and-white drawings depict his deliveries of books to incarcerated people, offering a rare glimpse inside the jail, where cameras and phones are banned and detainees are subject to conditions that have been criticized by legal and human-rights organizations.
“Phones and cameras aren’t allowed on Rikers, but I’m an illustrator,” de la Cruz writes in the piece. “Sometimes I saw things that I felt compelled to draw from memory later.”
De la Cruz, a graduate of the ArtCenter College of Design, teaches visual communications at community workshops in New York City and is working on a graphic novel about his experiences on Rikers Island. His Pulitzer-winning contribution was his first submission to “The New Yorker.”
In honoring de la Cruz, the Pulitzer board cited his “bold black-and-white images that humanize the prisoners and staff through their hunger for books.”
“I’m always moved by the sense of gratitude and warmth that some people express when we’re able to get them the books that they asked for,” de la Cruz writes in the piece.
Images: Medar de la Cruz via mdlcomics.com.
