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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:

Review: The Testament of Mary by Colm Toibin

At 104 pages, The Testament of Mary by Colm Toibin, seems too slight to do justice to the enormity of its subject. Yet emotion vibrates from the pages with such intensity that the book’s impact lingers long after you have finished. Based on Toibin’s stage play, Testament, it reveals the tangle of emotions overwhelming Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ, in the period leading up to and directly following her son’s death.

It peels away the religious dogma and leaves the anger, frustration and terrible loss of a loving mother who could not protect her son from a looming danger to which she had become increasingly alert. Compounding this is her shame that

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