photo: Andrew Goldberg more news most popular most commented Liberty: A New Comic Strip Liberty by Aram Sinnreich Home Alone—With Medicaid Fraudsters by Tom Robbins Keeping Jazz Makers Alive by Nat Hentoff The Barely Legal Empire of Tony Alamo by Maria Luisa Tucker City Still Hassles '04 RNC Protesters Runnin' Scared by Graham Rayman Girls Love Gay Male Porn Pucker Up by Tristan Taormino My Boyfriend's Kink Is Getting Fat. What Do I Do? Savage Love by Dan Savage Sex and the City Spoilers: A Sneak Preview of What Really Happens to Carrie and the Girls by Lynn Yaeger The Barely Legal Empire of Tony Alamo by Maria Luisa Tucker Our Favorite Writers Pick Their Favorite Obscure Books Summer Guide by ALEXANDER NAZARYAN NYPD Inaction Over a Missing Black Woman Found Dead Sparks a Historic Racial-Bias Lawsuit (9) Sean Gardiner Devo-Inspired Art in East Williamsburg (8) Maro The Barely Legal Empire of Tony Alamo (5) Maria Luisa Tucker David Mamet: Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal' (4) David Mamet Runnin' Scared: Deep South of Houston: Is a Soul-Food Restaurant Too Black for Soho? (4) Runnin' Scared: Chloe A. Hilliard

Schoofs has been covering science and medicine for the Voice since 1995. Previously, he was the editor in chief of Windy City Times, a gay and lesbian publication in Chicago. He has been writing about AIDS for 13 years. To report his series, Schoofs interviewed doctors, undertakers, government officials, prostitutes, policy experts, and activists. He shot all but one of the photos, spent a week in a $5-a-night monastery, and battled drug-resistant malaria.

His articles illuminated how the epidemic is devastating an entire continent. So far, AIDS has killed nearly 14 million Africans and infected more than 23 million others. Schoofs's series is part of a long tradition of AIDS reporting at the Voice, which was among the first news organizations to assign an AIDS beat in the 1980s.

In its 45-year history, The Village Voice has won two other Pulitzers. Jules Feiffer won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning. And in 1981, Voice reporter Teresa Carpenter won a Pulitzer Prize for feature writing.

As he accepted congratulations from colleagues on April 10, Schoofs hoped the Pulitzer would have an impact. "Last week I received a letter from a village headman in Zimbabwe, telling me that one of the people I interviewed from the story had died, leaving behind four orphans," Schoofs said. "I hope the Pulitzer puts more pressure on America to do its part to combat AIDS in Africa. If we can give billions to fight a war in Kosovo, we should be able to do at least that to fight something that will cost millions more lives and create millions more orphans."

AIDS: The Agony of Africa by Mark Schoofs.