2009 Commonwealth Writers Prize Regional Winners
THESE ARE THE NOVELS and short-story collections that have won the regional Commonwealth Writers Prize and will now go on to compete for the overall Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book and Best First Book. Jhumpa Lahiri and Uwem Akpan are in the running for Best Book and Best First Book respectively. The results of the regional winners were announced on Wednesday, March 11, 2009. Overall winners will be announced on May 16, 2009.
Best Book1. Good to a Fault (Freehand Books, 2008) / Marina Endicott (Canada)
2. The Slap (Allen and Unwin, 2008) / Christos Tsiolkas (Australia)
3. Unaccustomed Earth (stories) (Bloomsbury, 2008) / Jhumpa Lahiri (United Kingdom)
4. The Lost Colours of the Chameleon (Picador Africa, 2008) / Mandla Langa (South Africa)
Best First Book1. Say You’re One of Them (stories) (Abacus, 2008) / Uwem Akpan (Nigeria)
2. The Year of the Shanghai Shark (Penguin New Zealand, 2008) / Mo Zhi Hong (New Zealand)
3. A Case of Exploding Mangoes (Jonathan Cape, 2008) / Mohammed Hanif (Pakistan)
4. Reading By Lightning (Goose Lane Editions, 2008) / Joan Thomas (Canada)
posted by Eric Forbes at 1:46 AM
2 Comments:
It's good to have Jhumpa Lahiri and Uwem Akpan in the finals.
The whole concept of 'regional winners' is fraudulent and intellectually untenable. Good writers are like good wine, that is to say, during some years you may find a bountiful crop in one 'region' and very little product of genuine merit in another. The advanced-liberal West lives in an Alice in Wonderland, "All must have prizes" milieu and the culturally deleterious effects of this neo-Marxian Weltanschauung are, like Kubla Khan's caverns, "measureless to man".
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