The Candidates for the Neustadt International Prize for Literature are always an interesting collection and I was glad to note that I have four of them on my site: César Aira, Mia Couto, Duong Thu Huong and Haruki Murakami. I know nothing about the three poets nominated – Edouard Maunick, Ilya Kaminsky and Ghassan Zaqtan, … Read more
The latest addition to my website is A. M. Homes‘ May We Be Forgiven, the winner of the 2013 Women’s Prize for Fiction. Most people, including me, thought that Bring Up the Bodies would win and were quite surprised that this novel won. While I very much enjoyed Bring Up the Bodies, I think May … Read more
Yesterday’s news in the literary prize world, at least in the English-speaking world, was about the Women’s Fiction Prize , won not by Hilary Mantel but by A M Homes. Homes’ novels have often been controversial, particularly her novel The End of Alice, about a pedophile. She is one of those all too many writers … Read more
The shortlist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction was announced and nearly got lost in the shuffle, as it was announced the day after Granta’s Best Young British Novelists list. Fortunately for it, there was something of a controversy, as Hilary Mantel was nominated for yet another prize for her book Bring up the Bodies. … Read more
I have been following the rumblings around the Man Booker International Prize nominations and thought that I would add my ten cents’ worth. Michael Orthofer and Chad Post have raised their concerns more eloquently than I can. I own works by nine of the ten writers. However, I have only read one of them – … Read more
This article by Shalom Auslander has to be the funniest take on book prizes I have seen. His story – Harley was our dog. She is dead now. I want to get a cat. is, of course, sheer brilliance. As Auslander says it contains sadness and rage and pain and even, yes, in the very … Read more
For the first (and probably last) time ever, I have managed to read all the books on Man Booker shortlist and, amazingly, read them before the winner is announced. I have not done so before because, frankly, they did not seem worthwhile. I have not, for example, read any of the books on last year’s … Read more
No, I am not going to talk about the Nobel Prize, except that I am. I was determined not to but I am essentially weak-willed. Michael Orthofer at Literary Saloon has now had a long(for him) post on it and The World Literature Forum, Fictional Woods, Goodreads and even The Game of Thrones forum have … Read more
Paul Bailey had an interesting comment in The Guardian on literary prizes. I have commented on lit prizes before, e.g. here, and make no bones about the fact that I have not been terribly whelmed by the choices of the various panels. Bailey mentions the James Tait Black Prize and the The Somerset Maugham Awards, … Read more
When I set up this blog, I vowed that I would only touch peripherally on the literary prize bandwagon/farce and here I am writing my fourth post and my fourth on literary prizes. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds as Ralph Waldo Emerson once said. There have been two burning (?) issues … Read more