This news category includes reports about literary awards and prizes that are awarded for fiction, here meaning works that are not drama or poetry (i.e. are novels or short stories).
To see all the latest literary awards news, see the front page of The Burnt Ones: Literary Awards News.
The 2007 Man Asian Literary Prize - Longlist Announced
Date: July 22, 2007 | Discussion: No Comments
The longlist for the first ever Man Asian Literary Prize has been announced. The new prize was established to recognize and promote new Asian literature. $10,000 (US) is given to the best new Asian novel “unpublished in English”, and $3,000 to its translator, if eligible.
This year’s longlist is:
Tulsi Badrinath, The Living God
Sanjay Bahadur, The Sound Of Water
Kankana Basu, Cappuccino Dusk
Sanjiv Bhatla, InJustice
Shahbano Bilgrami, Without Dreams
Saikat Chakraborty, The Amnesiac
Jose Dalisay Jr., Soledad’s Sister
Reeti Gadekar, Families at Home
Xiaolu Guo, 20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth
Ameena Hussein, The Moon in the Water
Nu Nu Yi Inwa, Smile As They Bow
Jiang Rong, Wolf Totem
Hitomi Kanehara, Autofiction
N S Madhavan, Litanies of Dutch Battery
Laxmi Narayan Mishra, The Little God
Mo Yan, Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out
Nalini Rajan, The Pangolin’s Tale
Chiew-Siah Tei, Little Hut of Leaping Fishes
Shreekumar Varma, Maria’s Room
Anuradha Vijayakrishnan, Seeing The Girl
Sujatha Vijayaraghavan, Pichaikuppan
Xu Xi, Habit of a Foreign Sky
Egoyan Zheng, Fleeting Light
Filed under Asian literature, English literature, Fiction, Longlists, Novels, World literature
Kesako Matsui awarded the Naoki Prize
Date: July 18, 2007 | Discussion: No Comments
Kesako Matsui has won the Naoki Prize, which is a one million yen prize recognizing the best Japanese popular literature by a young author. Like the Akutagawa Award, also the Naoki Prize was established in 1935, and is awarded twice a year.
Filed under Asian literature, Fiction, Novels, Winners, World literature
Tetsushi Suwa wins Akutagawa Prize
Date: July 17, 2007 | Discussion: No Comments
Tetsushi Suwa has won the Akutagawa Prize for his first novel Asatte no hito (”The person of the day after tomorrow”). The semiannual literary prize is one of Japan’s most prestigious book awards, and was established in 1935 in memory of Ryunosuke Akutagawa to celebrate new and rising talent.
Earlier this year Nanae Aoyama won the same prize for her novel Hitori Biyori.
Filed under Asian literature, Fiction, Novels, Winners, World literature
Arac de Nyeko wins Caine Prize
Date: July 12, 2007 | Discussion: No Comments
The Ugandan writer Monica Arac de Nyeko has been awarded the 2007 Caine Prize for her story “Jambula Tree”. The Caine Prize, awarded annually, was founded in 2000 to an African short story published in the English language. It is sometimes referred to as the “African Booker Prize”.
The winning work, a story about a lesbian relationship in a country where homosexuality is illegal, was described by the jury as “a witty and touching portrait of a community which is affected forever by a love which blossoms between two adolescents”.
While “Jambula Tree” remains unpublished or out of print in most English speaking countries, Ms Arac de Nyeko’s short story “Strange Fruit”, shortlisted for the 2004 Caine Prize, is available as part of the following selection:
Seventh Street Alchemy: A Selection of Writings from the Caine Prize for African Writing 2004
by Various
The 2004 winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing, Brian Chikwava’s “Seventh Street Alchemy” is featured alongside shortlisted stories from 2004, compositions from the Caine Prize’s March 2005 Workshop for African Writers, and Charles Mungoshi’s previously unpublished “Letter from a Friend” in this inspired collection of work from some of Africa’s most promising young and new writers. …
You can read more about Seventh Street Alchemy: A Selection of Writings from the Caine Prize for African Writing 2004 at Amazon.com and Amazon.ca.
Filed under African literature, English literature, Fiction, Short stories, Winners, World literature
Per Petterson wins International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
Date: June 18, 2007 | Discussion: 2 Comments
Norwegian novelist Per Petterson has been awarded the 2007 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for his novel Out Stealing Horses. The €100,000 award is the world’s largest literary prize for a single work of fiction published in English, and is chosen by a panel of international judges from a shortlist of over a hundred (this year 138) novels nominated by libraries from around the world.
Out Stealing Horses
by Per Petterson
Trond’s friend Jon often appeared at his doorstep with an adventure in mind for the two of them. But this morning was different. What began as a joy ride on “borrowed†horses ends with Jon falling into a strange trance of grief. Trond soon learns what befell Jon earlier that day—an incident that marks the beginning of a series of vital losses for both boys. Set in the easternmost region of Norway, Out Stealing Horses begins with an ending. Sixty-seven-year-old Trond has settled into a rustic cabin in an isolated area to live the rest of his life with a quiet deliberation. A meeting with his only neighbor, however, forces him to reflect on that fateful summer. …
You can read more about Out Stealing Horses at Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.ca.
Filed under English literature, European literature, Fiction, Novels, Winners, World literature
Chinua Achebe wins Man Booker International
Date: June 15, 2007 | Discussion: 1 Comment
The Nigerian novelist, poet and literary critic Chinua Achebe has won the 2007 Man Booker International Prize. The £60,000 prize is awarded once every two years to a living author, whose body of work “has contributed to an achievement in fiction on the world stage”. This is the second time the award has been handed out, after Ismail Kadaré won it in 2005.
Achebe is probably best known for his first novel, Things Fall Apart (1958) and the Booker Prize shortlisted Anthills of the Savannah (1987).
Things Fall Apart
by Chinua Achebe
One of Chinua Achebe’s many achievements in his acclaimed first novel, Things Fall Apart, is his relentlessly unsentimental rendering of Nigerian tribal life before and after the coming of colonialism. First published in 1958, just two years before Nigeria declared independence from Great Britain, the book eschews the obvious temptation of depicting pre-colonial life as a kind of Eden. Instead, Achebe sketches a world in which violence, war, and suffering exist, but are balanced by a strong sense of tradition, ritual, and social coherence. His Ibo protagonist, Okonkwo, is a self-made man. …
You can read more about Things Fall Apart at Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.ca.
Anthills of the Savannah
by Chinua Achebe
Chirs, Ikem and Beatrice are three like-minded friends working under the military regime of His Excellency, the Sandhurst-educated president of Kangan. In the pressurized atmosphere, they are simply trying to live and love - and remain friends. …
You can read more about Anthills of the Savannah at Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.ca.
