I’m a very casual reader, nothing heavier than Murakami.

My surprises:

- it’s just 5 judges, who makes the shortlist

- it’s the _same_ 5 judges judging the short list

- there are generally no criteria

- Pulitzer Prizes favors American settings.

- edit: bonus surprise I expected judges to be mostly critics and professors of literature

While I’m not surprised it’s just a few people judging the short list I would have expected more eyes on making the shortlist (editors and publishers make a short list and critics and authors judging it)

I definitely expected different prizes to value things differently. Like a Novel prize winner I would expect to be heavy, with layers and quite frankly a bit intimidating to casual readers, like myself.

I would not expect a criteria to favor a setting. Maybe an authors background (again, I would expect Nobel to favor poor authors who somehow made)