Two UAW members have won Pulitizer Prizes, the nation’s most prestigious awards for writing. Jhumpa Lahiri won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for her collection of short stories, "Interpreter of Maladies."

A member of the New York City chapter of the National Writers Union, UAW Local 1981, she writes stories from her experience of having lived in vastly different cultures.

Born in London, England, Lahiri has lived in Rhode Island and Calcutta, India. "Growing up in two countries, I see things in a way that not everyone around me can," she told reporters last year. Her writing captures the strict traditions of her ancestors and the baffling New World while it speaks to everyone who has ever felt like a foreigner.

Mark Schoofs, a member of UAW Local 2110, received the Pulitzer Award for international reporting. A staff writer and columnist for the Village Voice, a New York City weekly, Schoofs was recognized for his eight-part series, "AIDS: The Agony of Africa."

Schoofs specializes in reporting on science and medicine. His work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post, and the Paris Courier International.