Bowdoin Professor Came Close to Winning Second Pulitzer

BRUNSWICK, Maine - A Bowdoin College professor's book about her abusive father who had sex reassignment surgery at 76 nearly won her a second Pulitzer Prize.
 
Susan Faludi's "In the Darkroom'' was one of three nominees in the autobiography category that was won by Hisham Matar, author of "The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between.'' The prize was announced Monday.
 
Faludi teaches in the Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies program at Bowdoin College.
 
Her father was a Holocaust survivor described in the book as bullying and volatile. He stunned his feminist daughter by sending her an email in 2004 announcing he'd had sexual reassignment surgery.
 
Faludi previously won a Pulitzer while at The Wall Street Journal, where she wrote about the human cost of the leveraged buyout of a supermarket chain.