This category is for “world literature”. The label is somewhat flexible, and includes news about both literature awards that are either very international (and usually multilingual), or that are not part of the other national and regional categories for which other categories exist.
To see all the latest literary awards news, see the front page of The Burnt Ones: Literary Awards News.
Frank O’Connor shortlist announced
Date: July 31, 2007 | Discussion: No Comments
Shortlist for the 2007 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Prize has been announced. The world’s richest short story award, now awarded for the third time, is funded by the Cork City Council, and awarded annually in association with the Irish Times.
This year’s shortlist consists of six authors from five countries, with only three of the nominated authors being full-time writers. Notable omissions from the original longlist include David Malouf, Alice Munro and Mary Gordon.
This year’s Frank O’Connor Prize shortlist is:
Opportunity
by Charlotte Grimshaw
Unfortunately, no description is available for this work.
No One Belongs Here More Than You
by Miranda July
In her debut collection of short stories, July introduces the possibility of a moment that can change everything. A child stands in the sidewalk; a woman lies motionless in bed beside her husband; a teacher pauses at the chalkboard; when suddenly the daily drone is disrupted by something completely unexpected. July’s characters are awkward and often remote, yet they are also profoundly sympathetic. With great compassion and generosity she reveals the idiosyncrasies, vulnerability, longing, and odd logic that govern our lives. In “No One Belongs Here More Than You July” creates a deliriously hopeful universe where strangers hug and students swim across the kitchen floor. The same energy that captivates her film audiences is transposed into exhilarating new fiction.
You can read more about No One Belongs Here More Than You at Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.ca.
Missing Kissinger
by Etgar Keret
A magician tries to pull a rabbit out of a hat, but takes out only its head; a guy brings a girl home with him for the first time only to find that his best friend has pissed on his doorstep; a young man graduates from Magician School but soon discovers that he can’t do everything; two drunk students do battle with a pavement and win; someone has a mother and a girlfriend who hate each other’s guts, and they both demand that he gives them the other one’s heart…many of the characters in these stories are waiting for something to change their lives, many of them can’t quite reach ultimate happiness, some of them are sick, some are abandoned, and most have trouble communicating. The unexpected can, and usually does, happen. Etgar Keret’s stories are very short - and every word counts. They are quick, brief and precise, and they move us without hesitation. They are hilarious and off-the-wall, yet also dark, sometimes violent, and often intensely poignant.
You can read more about Missing Kissinger at Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.ca.
The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue
by Manuel Muñoz
In a series of ten interconnected stories, Manuel Muñoz illuminates the lives of several Mexican-American families in the same neighborhood in Central California. In these stories, sometimes belief is all there is: belief that a better job will come, that the loved one will return love, that a surly teenager headed for trouble will straighten out, that a gay son will change–faith and hope are staples of these people’s lives. For the most part, they are disappointed. Most of the stories are of single mothers or fathers trying to raise families under the shadow of immigration and language problems and too little money. The subtext of many of the stories is homosexuality, not a lifestyle embraced by the Mexican-American community.
You can read more about The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue at Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.ca.
Valentines
by Olaf Olafsson
Olaf Olafsson’s fans will recognize the perfect restraint and precision–and quick wit–with which he characteristically explores these dark epiphanies, when the heart is suddenly laid bare, whether by love or betrayal, disenchantment or regret, or the shock of loss. While their settings range from the East Coast to the West Coast, from Paris to Slovenia and Iceland, these contemporary stories probe the complexity of modern relationships over time. A wife realizes her closest confidante is much more than that. A father tries to make his new lover into the image of his late wife. A lusty photographer confronts his own mortality. A couple’s long-anticipated anniversary vacation opens onto the past. A husband, a wife, a child, a boating accident: no harm done . . . and yet? Each of the twelve stories reveals another element in the agonizing nature of passion, diminished and yet sustained over time. This is a powerful work of fiction from one of our most gifted and subtle international writers at work today.
You can read more about Valentines at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.
Award Title: The Separate Heart
by Simon Robson
If there is a thread running through Simon Robson’s brilliant collection of stories it is the notion of separateness - of adults from each other, of children from adult knowledge, of adult consciousness from the vividness of childhood. His protagonists are often unlikely - a cat, a man, met in a bar, who drove a chariot in Ben Hur, a girl who gets up very early - but these stories are satisfyingly long and devoid of modernist trickery; rather they are wise, funny, beautifully observed and somehow utterly true.
You can read more about The Separate Heart at Amazon.co.uk.
Filed under English literature, Fiction, Short stories, Shortlists, World literature
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.
