Shortlists & Winners of Major Literary Prizes

SCOTTISH POET Don Paterson has triumphed over one of the strongest poetry shortlists in years to take the Forward Poetry Prize for Best Collection with Rain. Paterson, 45, beat a line-up of acclaimed poets including Peter Porter, Sharon Olds and Glyn Maxwell to win the £10,000 award for Rain, a continuation of his personal and philosophical exploration of the world around him. Emma Jones’s The Striped World, inspired by her home country of Australia, was named winner of the £5,000 Best First Collection Prize. Both collections are published by Faber & Faber.

OCTOBER 27, 2009: The following books have been shortlisted for the 2009 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. The £5,000 prize goes to the best work of literature—including fiction, poetry, drama and nonfiction—by a UK or Commonwealth writer aged 35 or under. Last year’s prize was taken by Henry Hitchings for The Secret Life of Words—the first nonfiction book to win in six years. This year’s winner will be announced on November 30, 2009.

1. Between the Assassinations (stories) / Aravind Adiga
2. The Striped World (poetry) / Emma Jones
3. Six Months in Sudan (nonfiction) / James Maskalyk
4. The Thing Around Your Neck (stories) / Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
5. Waste (nonfiction) / Tristram Stuart
6. After the Fire, a Still Small Voice (novel) / Evie Wyld

OCTOBER 15, 2009: The following unpublished novels have been shortlisted for the 2009 Man Asian Literary Prize:

1. Jimmy the Terrorist / Omair Ahmad (India)
2. Day Scholar / Siddharth Chowdhury (India)
3. The Descartes Highlands / Eric Gamalinda (Philippines)
4. Residue / Nitasha Kaul (India)
5. The Boat to Redemption / Su Tong (China)

OCTOBER 15, 2009: The finalists for the US’s 2009 National Book Award for Fiction were announced on October 15, 2009. These are the shortlisted authors and their books:

1. American Salvage (Wayne State University Press, 2009) / Bonnie Jo Campbell
2. Let the Great World Spin (Random House, 2009) / Colum McCann
3. In Other Rooms, Other Wonders (W.W. Norton, 2009) / Daniyal Mueenuddin
4. Lark and Termite (Alfred A. Knopf, 2009) / Jayne Anne Phillips
5. Far North (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2009) / Marcel Theroux

The winner of the 2009 National Book Award for Fiction will be announced in New York on Wednesday, November 18, 2009.

OCTOBER 14, 2009: 2009 Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction Shortlist
The Canada Council for the Arts has announced the finalists for the 2009 Governor General’s Literary Awards. The authors shortlisted for fiction include:

1. Galore (Doubleday Canada, 2009) / Michael Crummey
2. The Golden Mean (Random House Canada, 2009) / Annabel Lyon
3. Too Much Happiness (McClelland & Stewart, 2009) / Alice Munro
4. The Mistress of Nothing (McArthur & Company, 2009) / Kate Pullinger
5. Vanishing and Other Stories (Penguin Group Canada, 2009) / Deborah Willis

This year’s Governor General Literary Award will be announced on November 17, 2009 in Quebec, Montreal, Canada.

OCTOBER 6, 2009: 2009 Scotiabank Giller Prize Shortlist
The 2009 Scotiabank Giller Prize shortlist was announced on October 6, 2009. The jury, comprising Russell Banks, Victoria Glendinning and Alistair MacLeod, chose five books out of a list of 96 books. The shortlisted authors are:

1. The Disappeared (Hamish Hamilton Canada, 2009) / Kim Echlin
2. The Golden Mean (Random House Canada, 2009) / Annabel Lyon
3. The Bishop’s Man (Random House Canada, 2009) / Linden MacIntyre
4. Fall (Hamish Hamilton Canada, 2009) / Colin McAdam
5. The Winter Vault (McClelland & Stewart, 2009) / Anne Michaels

This year’s Scotiabank Giller Prize will be announced on November 10, 2009 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.



SEPTEMBER 30, 2009: Established in 1997, the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize recognises Canadian writers of exceptional talent for the year’s best novel or short-story collection.

1. Fences in Breathing (trans. from the French by Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood) (Coach House Books, 2009) / Nicole Brossard
2. Generation A (Random House Canada, 2009) / Douglas Coupland
3. The Golden Mean (Random House Canada, 2009) / Annabel Lyon
4. Too Much Happiness (McClelland and Stewart, 2009) / Alice Munro
5. Eva’s Threepenny Theatre (Gaspereau Press, 2009) / Andrew Steinmetz

The prize will be awarded on November 24, 2009, at the Writers’ Trust Awards.