BOOK AWARDS
2009 WINNERS
Man Booker Prize (2009)
Wolf Hall wins the 2009 Man Booker Prize for Fiction
Wolf Hall is set in the 1520s and tells the story of Thomas Cromwell's rise to prominence in the Tudor court. Hilary Mantel has been praised by critics for writing ‘a rich, absorbingly readable historical novel; she has made a significant shift in the way any of her readers interested in English history will henceforward think about Thomas Cromwell.'
James Naughtie, comments ‘Hilary Mantel has given us a thoroughly modern novel set in the 16th century. Wolf Hall has a vast narrative sweep that gleams on every page with luminous and mesmerising detail.
‘It probes the mysteries of power by examining and describing the meticulous dealings in Henry VIII's court, revealing in thrilling prose how politics and history is made by men and women.
Scotiabank Giller Prize (2009)
(http://www.scotiabankgillerprize.ca)
The Scotiabank Giller Prize, established in 1994, is an award that goes to
the author of a Canadian novel or short story fiction collection published
in English (including translation) deemed by a jury to be the best published
in the previous year.
THE BISHOP’S MAN
Father Duncan MacAskill has spent most of his priesthood as the “Exorcist” —
an enforcer employed by his bishop to discipline wayward priests and
suppress potential scandal. He knows all the devious ways that lonely
priests persuade themselves that their needs trump their vows, but he’s
about to be sorely tested himself. While sequestered by his bishop in a
small rural parish to avoid an impending public controversy, Duncan must
confront the consequences of past cover-ups and the suppression of his own
human needs. Pushed to the breaking point by loneliness, tragedy and sudden
self-knowledge, Duncan discovers how hidden obsessions and guilty secrets
either find their way to the light of understanding, or poison any chance we
have for love and spiritual peace.
Toronto, ON (November 10, 2009) – Linden MacIntyre has been named the 2009 winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize for his novel The Bishop’s Man, published by Random House Canada. The announcement was made live on Bravo! and BookTelevision at a black-tie dinner and award ceremony that drew nearly 500 members of the publishing, media and arts communities. Hosted by CTV’s Seamus O’Regan, THE SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE gala premieres on CTV tomorrow - Wednesday, November 11 at 10 a.m. ET and is available on demand on CTV.ca (on-demand broadcast and complete telecast listings are available at giller.CTV.ca)
The largest annual prize for fiction in the country, the Scotiabank Giller Prize awards $50,000 to the author of the best Canadian novel or short story collection published in English and $5,000 to each of the finalists. A shortlist of five authors and their books was announced on October 6, 2009. Those finalists were:
- • Kim Echlin for her novel THE DISAPPEARED, published by Hamish Hamilton Canada
- • Annabel Lyon for her novel THE GOLDEN MEAN, published by Random House Canada
- • Linden MacIntyre for his novel THE BISHOP’S MAN, published by Random House Canada
- • Colin McAdam for his novel FALL, published by Hamish Hamilton Canada
- • Anne Michaels for her novel THE WINTER VAULT, published by McClelland & Stewart
The shortlist and ultimate winner was selected by an esteemed jury panel made up of celebrated American novelist and short story writer Russell Banks, acclaimed UK author and journalist Victoria Glendinning, and distinguished professor and award-winning author Alistair MacLeod. The shortlist was chosen from 96 books submitted for consideration by 39 publishing houses from every region of the country.
Of the winning book, the jury remarked:
“The Bishop’s Man centres on a sensitive topic - the sexual abuses perpetrated by Catholic priests on the innocent children in their care. Father Duncan, the first person narrator, has been his bishop's dutiful enforcer, employed to check the excesses of priests and, crucially, to suppress the evidence. But as events veer out of control, he is forced into painful self-knowledge as family, community and friendship are torn apart under the strain of suspicion, obsession and guilt. A brave novel, conceived and written with impressive delicacy and understanding.”
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (2009)
The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction has been
awarded since 1948 for distinguished fiction by an American author,
preferably dealing with American life.
Olive Kitteridge by
Elizabeth Strout
Synopsis
-
At times stern, at other times patient, at times perceptive, at other times
in sad denial, Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, deplores the
changes in her little town of Crosby, Maine, and in the world at large, but
she doesn't always recognize the changes in those around her: a lounge
musician haunted by a past romance; a former student who has lost the will
to live; Olive's own adult child, who feels tyrannized by her irrational
sensitivities; and her husband, Henry, who finds his loyalty to his marriage
both a blessing and a curse.
As the townspeople grapple with their problems, mild and dire, Olive is
brought to a deeper understanding of herself and her life-sometimes
painfully, but always with ruthless honesty.
Olive Kitteridge offers profound
insights into the human condition-its conflicts, its tragedies and joys, and
the endurance it requires.
Author Biography
-
Elizabeth Strout is the author of Abide with Me, a national
bestseller and Book Sense pick, and Amy and Isabelle, which won the
Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and the
Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize. She has also been a finalist for the
PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize in
Orange Prize for Fiction (2009)
(http://www.orangeprize.co.uk)
The Orange Prize for Fiction, started in 1996, is one of the United
Kingdom's most prestigious literary prizes, annually awarded to a female
author of any nationality for the best original full-length novel written in
English, and published in the United Kingdom in the preceding year.
Home by Marilynne Robinson
Synopsis
–
Set in the rural town of
Author Biography
-
Marilynne Robinson is the author of Housekeeping, winner of the PEN
/Hemingway Award and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and
Nobel Prize in Literature (2009)
(http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature)
The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2009 is awarded to the German author Herta Müller
"who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed".
Herta Müller was born on August 17, 1953 in the German-speaking town Nitzkydorf in Banat, Romania. Her parents were members of the German-speaking minority in Romania. Her father had served in the Waffen SS during World War II. Many German Romanians were deported to the Soviet Union in 1945, including Müller's mother who spent five years in a work camp in present-day Ukraine. Many years later, in Atemschaukel (2009), Müller was to depict the exile of the German Romanians in the Soviet Union. From 1973 to 1976, Müller studied German and Romanian literature at the university in Timişoara (Temeswar). During this period, she was associated with Aktionsgruppe Banat, a circle of young German-speaking authors who, in opposition to Ceauşescu’s dictatorship, sought freedom of speech. After completing her studies, she worked as a translator at a machine factory from 1977 to 1979. She was dismissed when she refused to be an informant for the secret police. After her dismissal, she was harassed by Securitate.
Müller made her debut with the collection of short stories Niederungen (1982), which was censored in Romania. Two years later, she published the uncensored version in Germany and, in the same year, Drückender Tango in Romania. In these two works, Müller depicts life in a small, German-speaking village and the corruption, intolerance and repression to be found there. The Romanian national press was very critical of these works while, outside of Romania, the German press received them very positively. Because Müller had publicly criticized the dictatorship in Romania, she was prohibited from publishing in her own country. In 1987, Müller emigrated together with her husband, author Richard Wagner.
The novels Der Fuchs war damals schon der Jäger (1992), Herztier (1994; The Land of Green Plums, 1996) and Heute wär ich mir lieber nicht begegnet (1997; The Appointment, 2001) give, with chiselled details, a portrait of daily life in a stagnated dictatorship. Müller has given guest lectures at universities, colleges and other venues in Paderborn, Warwick, Hamburg, Swansea, Gainsville (Florida), Kassel, Göttingen, Tübingen and Zürich among other places. She lives in Berlin. Since 1995 she is a member of Deutsche für Sprache und Dichtung, in Darmstadt.
| Works in German |
| Niederungen. – Bukarest : Kriterion-Verlag, 1982 ; Berlin : Rotbuch-Verlag, 1984 |
| Drückender Tango : Erzählungen. – Bukarest : Kriterion-Verlag, 1984 ; Reinbek bei Hamburg : Rowohlt, 1996 |
| Der Mensch ist ein groβer Fasan auf der Welt : Roman. – Berlin : Rotbuch-Verlag, 1986 |
| Barfüβiger Februar : Prosa. – Berlin : Rotbuch-Verlag, 1987 |
| Reisende auf einem Bein. – Berlin : Rotbuch-Verlag, 1989 |
| Der Teufel sitzt im Spiegel. – Berlin : Rotbuch-Verlag, 1991 |
| Der Fuchs war damals schon der Jäger : Roman. – Reinbek bei Hamburg : Rowohlt, 1992 |
| Eine warme Kartoffel ist ein warmes Bett. – Hamburg : Europäische Verlagsanstalt, 1992 |
| Der Wächter nimmt seinen Kamm : vom Weggehen und Ausscheren. – Reinbek bei Hamburg : Rowohlt, 1993 |
| Herztier : Roman. – Reinbek bei Hamburg : Rowohlt, 1994 |
| Hunger und Seide : Essays. – Reinbek bei Hamburg : Rowohlt, 1995 |
| In der Falle. – Göttingen : Wallstein-Verlag, 1996 |
| Heute wär ich mir lieber nicht begegnet. – Reinbek bei Hamburg : Rowohlt, 1997 |
| Der fremde Blick oder Das Leben ist ein Furz in der Laterne. – Göttingen : Wallstein-Verlag, 1999 |
| Im Haarknoten wohnt eine Dame. – Reinbek bei Hamburg : Rowohlt, 2000 |
| Heimat ist das, was gesprochen wird. – Blieskastel : Gollenstein, 2001 |
| Der König verneigt sich und tötet. – München : Hanser, 2003 |
| Die blassen Herren mit den Mokkatassen. – München : Hanser, 2005 |
| Atemschaukel : Roman. – München : Hanser, 2009 |
| Works in English |
| The Passport / translated by Martin Chalmers. – London : Serpent's Tail, 1989. – Translation of Der Mensch ist ein großer Fasan auf der Welt |
| The Land of Green Plums / translated by Michael Hofmann. – New York : Metropolitan Books, 1996. – Translation of Herztier |
| Traveling on One Leg / translated from the German by Valentina Glajar and André Lefevere. – Evanston, Ill. : Northwestern University Press, 1998. – Translation of Reisende auf einem Bein |
| Nadirs / translated and with an afterword by Sieglinde Lug. – Lincoln, NE : University of Nebraska Press, 1999. – Translation of Niederungen |
| The Appointment / translated by Michael Hulse and Philip Boehm. – New York : Metropolitan Books, 2001. – Translation of Heute wär ich mir lieber nicht begegnet |
| Works in French |
| L'homme est un grand faisan sur terre / traduit de l'allemand par Nicole Bary. – Paris : Maren Sell, 1988. – Traduction de: Der Mensch ist ein groβer Fasan auf der Welt |
| Le renard était déjà le chasseur / traduit de l'allemand par Claire de Oliveira. – Paris : Seuil, 1997. – Traduction de: Der Fuchs war damals schon der Jäger |
| La convocation / traduit de l'allemand par Claire de Oliveira. – Paris : Métailié, 2001. – Traduction de: Heute wär ich mir lieber nicht begegnet |
| Works in Spanish |
| En tierras bajas / traducción del alemán de Juan José del Solar. – Madrid : Siruela, 1990. – Traducción de: Niederungen |
| El hombre es un gran faisán en el mundo / traducción del alemán de Juan José del Solar. – Madrid : Siruela, 1992. – Traducción de: Der Mensch ist ein groβer Fasan auf der Welt |
| La piel del zorro / traducción de Juan José del Solar. – Barcelona : Plaza & Janés, 1996. – Traducción de: Der Fuchs war damals schon der Jäger |
| La bestia del corazón / traducción de Bettina Blanch Tyroller. – Barcelona : Mondadori, 1997. – Traducción de: Herztier |
| Works in Swedish |
| Flackland / översättning av Susanne Widén-Swartz. – Stockholm : Alba, 1985. – Originaltitel: Niederungen |
| Människan är en stor fasan på jorden : en berättelse / översättning av Karin Löfdahl. – Stockholm : Alba, 1987. – Originaltitel: Der Mensch ist ein groβer Fasan auf der Welt |
| Barfota februari : berättelser / översättning av Karin Löfdahl. – Stockholm : Alba, 1989. – Originaltitel: Barfüβiger Februar |
| Resande på ett ben / översättning av Karin Löfdahl. – Stockholm : Alba, 1991. – Originaltitel: Reisende auf einem Bein |
| Redan då var räven jägare / översättning av Karin Löfdahl. – Stockholm : Bonnier Alba, 1994. – Originaltitel: Der Fuchs war damals schon der Jäger |
| Hjärtdjur / översättning av Karin Löfdahl. – Stockholm : Bonnier Alba, 1996. – Originaltitel: Herztier |
| Kungen bugar och dödar / översättning: Karin Löfdahl. – Stockholm : Wahlström & Widstrand, 2005 – Originaltitel: Der König verneigt sich und tötet |
| Idag hade jag helst inte velat träffa mig själv / översättning: Karin Löfdahl. – Stockholm : Wahlström & Widstrand, 2007 – Originaltitel: Heute wär ich mir lieber nicht begegnet |
National Book Award (2009)
(http://www.nationalbook.org)
The National Book Awards, started in 1950 and among the most eminent
literary prizes in the United States, are presented annually to American
authors for literature published in the prior year, as well as lifetime
achievement awards including the "Medal of Distinguished Contribution to
American Letters" and the "Literarian Award".
Colum
McCann
Let the Great World Spin
Random House
CITATION
Like the funambulist at the heart of this extraordinary novel, Colum McCann accomplishes a gravity-defying feat: from ten ordinary lives he crafts an indelibly hallucinatory portrait of a decaying New York City, and offers through his generosity of spirit and lyrical gifts an ecstatic vision of the human courage required to stay aloft above the ever-yawning abyss.
ABOUT THE BOOK
In the dawning light of a late-summer morning, the people of lower Manhattan stand hushed, staring up in disbelief at the Twin Towers. It is August 1974, and a mysterious tightrope walker is running, dancing, leaping between the towers, suspended a quarter mile above the ground. In the streets below, a slew of ordinary lives become extraordinary in Colum McCann’s intricate portrait of a city and its people. Let the Great World Spin is the author’s most ambitious novel yet: a dazzlingly rich vision of the pain, loveliness, mystery, and promise of New York City in the 1970s
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Colum McCann is the internationally bestselling author of the novels Let the Great World Spin, Zoli, Dancer, This Side of Brightness, and Songdogs, as well as two critically acclaimed story collections. His fiction has been published in thirty languages. He has been a finalist for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and was the inaugural winner of the Ireland Fund of Monaco Literary Award in Memory of Princess Grace. He has been named one of Esquire’s “Best and Brightest,” and his short film Everything in This Country Must was a 2005 Oscar nominee. A contributor to The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, and The Paris Review, he teaches at Hunter College and lives in New York City with his wife and children.
(http://www.costabookawards.com)
The Costa Book Awards (previously known as the Whitbread), launched in
1971, are a series of literary awards given to books by authors based in the
United Kingdom and Ireland for both high literary merit, works that are
enjoyable reading and whose aim is to convey the enjoyment of reading to the
widest possible audience.
CHRISTOPHER REID WINS 2009 COSTA BOOK OF THE YEAR
Poet Christopher Reid has won the 2009 Costa Book of the Year award for his collection, A Scattering, a tribute to his wife Lucinda Gane following her death in 2005. The announcement was made this evening (Tuesday 26th January) at an awards ceremony held at Quaglino's in central London.
Following the judging, Josephine Hart, chair of the final judges, said: "Out of a personal tragedy, Christopher Reid has written a masterwork which has universal power. Austere, beautiful and moving - we all felt this was a book we would want everyone to read. Packed full of unforgettable lines - A Scattering is a remarkable piece."
Since the introduction of the Book of the Year award in 1985, it has been won nine times by a novel, four times by a first novel, five times by a biography, five times by a collection of poetry and once by a children's book.
Category Award Winners - 2009
One winner is selected in each of the five categories - Novel, First Novel, Biography, Poetry and Children's Book. Each category-winning author receives £5,000.
Costa Novel Award Winner
Colm Toibin - Brooklyn
Judges: "Poised, quiet and incrementally shattering - we all loved this book
and can't praise it highly enough."
Costa First Novel Award Winner
Raphael Selbourne - Beauty
Judges: "Pitch perfect on every level - we loved this book."
Costa Biography Award Winner
Graham Farmelo - The Strangest Man
Judges: "The extraordinary mind and achievements of Britain's Einstein are
rendered here in the most compelling biography of the year."
Costa Poetry Award Winner
Christopher Reid- A Scattering
Judges: "Intensely moving, compelling and honest - this is a highly readable
collection of wonderful poems."
Costa Children's Book Award Winner
Patrick Ness - The Ask and the Answer (Chaos Walking, Book
Two)
Judges: "From the first word, we were gripped by this dazzlingly-imagined,
morally complex, compulsively-plotted tale. We are convinced that this is a
major achievement in the making."
Governor General Awards – Fiction (2009)
(http://www.canadacouncil.ca/prizes/ggla)
Each year, the Canada Council for the Arts and the Governor General of
Synopsis: Lady Duff Gordon is the toast of Victorian London society. But
when her debilitating tuberculosis means exile, she and her devoted lady’s
maid, Sally, set sail for Egypt. It is Sally who describes, with a mixture
of wonder and trepidation, the odd ménage (marshaled by the resourceful
Omar) that travels down the Nile to a new life in Luxor. When Lady Duff
Gordon undoes her stays and takes to native dress, throwing herself into
weekly salons, language lessons and excursions to the tombs, Sally too
adapts to a new world, which affords her heady and heartfelt freedoms never
known before. But freedom is a luxury that a maid can ill-afford, and when
Sally grasps more than her status entitles her to, she is brutally reminded
that she is mistress of nothing.
Author Biography: Kate Pullinger was born in Vancouver, and now lives in
London. She is the author of Tiny Lies, a collection of short stories, and
the novels When the Monster Dies, Weird Sister and A Little Stranger. She
collaborated with Jane Campion on the novel of the film The Piano, and has
written for film, television and radio. She teaches creative writing and new
media at De Montfort University.
(http://www.canadacouncil.ca/prizes/ggla)
Each year, the Canada Council for the Arts and the Governor General of
Synopsis: It would take many lifetimes, it was said to me during my first visit, to see all of India. The desperation must have shown on my face to absorb and digest all I possibly could. This was not something I had articulated or resolved; and yet I recall an anxiety as I travelled the length and breadth of the country, senses raw to every new experience, that even in the distraction of a blink I might miss something profoundly significant.
I was not born in India, nor were my parents; that might explain much in my expectation of that visit. Yet how many people go to the homeland of their grandparents with such a heartload of expectation and momentousness; such a desire to find themselves in everything they see? Is it only India that clings thus, to those who've forsaken it; is this why Indians in a foreign land seem always so desperate to seek each other out? What was India to me?
The inimitable M.G. Vassanji turns his eye to India, the homeland of his ancestors, in this powerfully moving tale of family and country. Part travelogue, part history, A Place Within is M.G. Vassanji's intelligent and beautifully written journey to explore where he belongs.
Author Biography: M.G. Vassanji is the author of the acclaimed novels The Assassin's Song, shortlisted for the 2007 Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Governor General's Award for Fiction, The Gunny Sack, which won a regional Commonwealth Writers' Prize, No New Land, and Amriika. He has twice been awarded the Giller Prize, for his novels The Book of Secrets and The In-Between World of Vikram Lall. Vassanji lives in Toronto.
International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (2009) The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award is the largest and most international prize of its kind. It involves libraries from all corners of the globe, and is open to books written in any language. The Award, an initiative of Dublin City Council, is a partnership between Dublin City Council, the Municipal Government of Dublin City, and IMPAC, a productivity improvement company which operates in over 50 countries. The Award is administered by Dublin City Public Libraries.
Man Gone Down by Michael Thomas
Synopsis - Evoking the work of
great American masters such as Ralph Ellison, but distinctly original,
Michael Thomas’ first novel is a beautifully written, insightful, and
devastating account of a young black father of three in a biracial marriage
trying to claim a piece of the American Dream. On the eve of the unnamed
narrator’s thirty-fifth birthday, he finds himself broke, estranged from his
white Boston Brahmin wife and three children, and living in the bedroom of a
friend’s six-year-old child. With only four days before he’s due in to pick
up his family, he must make some sense out of his life. Alternating between
his past—as an inner city child bused to the suburbs in the 1970’s—and a
present where he is trying mightily to keep his children in private schools,
we learn of his mother’s abuses, his father’s abandonment, and the best and
worst intentions of a supposedly integrated America. This is an
extraordinary debut about what it feels like to be pre-programmed to fail in
life—and the urge to escape that sentence.
Author Biography - Michael Thomas was born and raised
in Boston. He received his B.A. from Hunter College and his M.F.A. from
Warren Wilson College. He teaches at Hunter College and lives in Brooklyn
with his wife and three children.
Charles Taylor Prize (2009)
The Charles Taylor Prize commemorates Charles Taylor’s pursuit of
excellence in the field of literary non-fiction. The prize will be awarded to
the author whose book best combines a superb command of the English
language, an elegance of style, and a subtlety of thought and perception.
The prize consists of $25,000 for the winner and $2,000 for each of the
runners up as well as promotional support to help all shortlisted books
stand out in the national media, bookstores, and libraries. Authors whose
books have been shortlisted for the prize will be brought to Toronto for the
awards ceremony. The winner will be invited to read at the International
Festival of Authors, held in October at Harbourfront Centre in Toronto.
Shock Troops: Canadians Fighting the Great War, 1917–1918, Volume Two
by Tim Cook
Synopsis - Highly acclaimed and
comprehensive, Shock Troops follows the Canadian forces during the
titanic battles of Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele, and the Hundred Days campaign.
Through the eyes of foot soldiers who fought and died in the trenches on the
Western Front, and based on newly uncovered archival sources, this book
builds on volume I of Tim Cook's national bestseller, At the Sharp End
. The Canadian fighting forces never lost a battle during the final two
years of the war, and although they paid a terrible price in the killing
fields of the Great War, they were indeed, as British Prime Minister David
Lloyd George exclaimed, the shock troops of the Empire.
Author Biography -
TIM COOK is the Great War
historian at the Canadian War Museum, as well as adjunct professor at
Carleton University. His books have won numerous awards, including the 2009
Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction for Shock Troops.
