The premier of Queensland, Australia, has announced she will bring back public funding for the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards which had been cancelled by her predecessor and former premier Campbell Newman in in 2012. Annastacia Palasczcuk committed $125,000 to match public
Folio Prize shortlist sees some intriguing omissions
Sometimes, the list of entrants who don’t make make it onto the shortlist for a literary prize can be as interesting as those who do. The prestigious Folio Prize, which is open to books of any genre from anywhere in the world, written in the english language and published in England, this week named its final eight, and there were some surprising omissions. First the shortlist which includes some exciting and original works:
Ricard Flanagan wins Man Booker Prize with The Narrow Road to the Deep North
Richard Flanagan has won the Man Booker Prize 2014 with his book The Narrow Road to the Deep North which was described by the chair of the judges, philosopher AC Grayling, as “an absolutely superb novel, a really outstanding work of literature”. “It is not really a war novel,” Grayling said. “It…
Will head or heart triumph when the Man Booker Prize 2014 is announced?
So, which will triumph tomorrow when the Man Booker Prize winner for 2014 is finally announced? Head or heart? My heart wants it to be Richard Flanagan’s harrowing but deeply moving historical drama The Narrow Road to the Deep North largely focused on Australian prisoners of war building the Burma Railway. A close second would be Karen Joy Fowler’s stunningly original and at times very funny We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves which also raises some important and difficult ethical questions.
My head says it will be Howard Jacobson’s bleak, dystopian J or possibly Neel Mukherjee’s The Lives of Others a sweeping masterpiece about the decline of a family, set in the 1967 Bengali famine. But like everyone except the judging panel, I
Shortlist for Miles Franklin Literary Award announced
Those with are supposedly in the know are spruiking either Alexis Wright (The Swan Book) or Tim Winton (Eyrie) to walk away with Australia’s top fiction prize, the Miles Franklin Literary Award. Both are previous winners. However, I’m going to go out on a limb and say it will be Richard Flanagan’s moving…
Shortlists announced for 2014 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards
Some of Australia’s leading writers have been recognised in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards announced today. The six contenders in the Fiction category are: The Secret Lives of Men by Georgia Blain, The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanangan, The Railwayman’s Wife by Ashley Hay, Questions of Travel…
Richard Flanagan, Hannah Kent win in Indie Awards
Richard Flanagan’s moving The Road to the Deep North, about Australian soldiers on the Thai-Burma railway in World War 2, has been voted best fiction book by the independent booksellers of Australia. Hannah Kent’s superb, Burial Rites, won best debut novel in the Indie Awards. The other winners were Girt…
Fabulous line-up of new titles for 2014
2014 promises to be as rich a literary year as 2013 with new books due out from authors such as Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, Joyce Carol Oates (February), Emma Donoghue (April), Haruki Murakami and possibly Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror and the Light, the third part of her Wolf…
Page-turners: recent happenings in the world of books
Donal Ryan has taken out the Guardian First Book Award 2013 with The Spinning Heart, a picture of rural life in post-crash Ireland. I haven’t read The Spinning Heart (which was long-listed for The Booker Prize) but I have read (and have reviewed here on Stillnotfussed) two of the other…