Titan Books publisher celebrates Pulitzer Prize win for author Daniel Kraus

By John Freeman on May 7, 2026 • ( 0 )

Titan Books are celebrating after news that author Daniel Kraus, had been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his intense horror novel, Angel Down, which they published last year, which was published by Simon & Schuster under their Atria Books imprint in the United States.

A stylistically bold and innovative, cinematic horror novel about greed and paranoia, Angel Down is set amongst the grit and mud of the trenches in World War One. Perfect for fans of Stephen Graham Jones and Alma Katsu.

The novel. a New York Times Top 10 Book of 2025, is “a unique literary experience as it is a novel written in one sentence,” notes Titan Books co-publisher Nick Landau. “Like that famous three minute one shot opening sequence of Welles’ masterpiece Touch of Evil – except that it’s the whole darn book! And it ends with a comma so it can be said that it is unfinished….!”

Imagine Entertainment, the production company founded by Ron Howard and Brian Grazer, is developing the film adaptation. Kraus will write the screenplay for the film, and Grazer will be among its producers.

Imagine are also behind a film adaptation of Kraus’ 2023 novel, Whalefall, set for release in October, directed by Brian Duffield and starring Austin Abrams, Josh Brolin and Elisabeth Shue.

In Angel Down, Private Cyril Bagger has managed to survive the unspeakable horrors of the Great War through his wits and deception, swindling fellow soldiers at every opportunity. But his survival instincts are put to the ultimate test when he and four other grunts are given a deadly mission: venture into the perilous No Man’s Land to euthanise a wounded comrade.

What they find amid the ruined battlefield, however, is not a man in need of mercy but a fallen angel, seemingly struck down by artillery fire. This celestial being may hold the key to ending the brutal conflict, but only if the soldiers can suppress their individual desires and work together. As jealousy, greed, and paranoia take hold, the group is torn apart by their inner demons, threatening to turn their angelic encounter into a descent into hell.

Angel Down plunges you into the heart of World War I and weaves a polyphonic tale of survival, supernatural wonder, and moral conflict…

• Angel Down is available in its Titan Books edition from all good UK bookshops | ISBN: 978-1835415382 | AmazonUK Affiliate Link

*Author Daniel Kraus | Photograph by Lyndon French*

Chicago-based Daniel Kraus, whose work has been translated into over 25 languages, is the bestselling author of Whalefall, and also co-authored The Living Dead with legendary filmmaker George a. Romero, and The Shape of Water with Guillermo del Toro, based on the same idea the two created for the Oscar-winning film. Also with del Toro, Kraus co-authored Trollhunters, which was adapted into the Emmy-winning Netflix series.

Kraus’s The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch was named one of Entertainment Weekly‘s Top 10 Books of the Year, and he has won two Odyssey Awards (for both Rotters and Scowler) and has been a Library Guild selection, YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults, Bram Stoker finalist, and more.

He is also co-author of the Graveyard Girls series, cowritten with New York Times Bestselling Canadian author Lisi Harrison, illustrated by Flavia Sorrentino. The fifth and final book in the series, Where There’s Smoke, There’s a Liar, will be published in September.

• Angel Down is available in its Titan Books edition from all good UK bookshops | ISBN: 978-1835415382 | AmazonUK Affiliate Link |

• Daniel Kraus is online at danielkraus.com | Follow Daniel on BlueSky

About the Author
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John Freeman

John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.

He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.