Monday, July 31, 2006

Patrick HAMILTON ... Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky (1987)

Bibliography
HAMILTON Patrick [1904-1962] Novelist, playwright. Born Anthony Walter Patrick Hamilton in Hassocks, Sussex, England. Novels Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky [comprising The Midnight Bell (1929), The Siege of Pleasure (1932), The Plains of Cement (1934)] (1987); Unknown Assailant (1955); Mister Stimpson and Mister Gorse (1953); The West Pier (1952); The Slaves of Solitude (1947); Hangover Square (1941); Impromptu in Moribundia (1939); The Plains of Cement (1934); The Siege of Pleasure (1932); The Midnight Bell (1929); Twopence Coloured (1928); Craven House (1926); Monday Morning (1925) Drama Angel Street (1966); The Man Upstairs (1954); The Governess (1946); The Duke in Darkness (1942); Money with Menaces (1939); Gas Light (1939); John Brown’s Body (1930); The Procuration of Judea (1930); Rope (also known as Rope’s End) (1929)

Sunday, July 30, 2006

2006 Nobel Prize for Literature

BRITISH PLAYWRIGHT Harold Pinter won the 2005 Nobel Prize for Literature, the first Briton to win the literature award since V.S. Naipaul won it in 2001. So who will it be for 2006? A couple of candidates come to mind.

Orhan Pamuk is a perfect candidate for the 2006 Nobel Prize for Literature for his contribution to World Literature with a consistent body of work, both fiction and nonfiction. Other excellent choices for this prize would be Margaret Atwood, Don DeLillo, E.L. Doctorow, Ryszard Kapuscinski, Milan Kundera, Alice Munro, Amos Oz, Philip Roth and John Updike.

Saturday, July 29, 2006

The New Criterion Poetry Prize 2000-2005

2006 Foiled Again (2007) / J. Allyn ROSSER

2005 The God of This World to His Prophet (2006) / Bill COYLE

2004 Weighing Light (2005) / Geoffrey BROCK

2003 Zero Meridian (2004) / Deborah WARREN

2002 Skywriting and Other Poems (2003) / Charles TOMLINSON

2001 The Thousand Wells (2002) / Adam KIRSCH

2000 Early and Late: Selected Poems (2001) / Donald PETERSEN

Friday, July 28, 2006

Paul THEROUX ... The Cold World (2007)

Bibliography
THEROUX Paul [1941-] Travel writer, novelist. Born Paul Edward Theroux in Medford, Massachusetts, U.S. Novels The Cold World (2007); Blinding Light (2005); Nurse Wolf and Dr Sacks (2001); Hotel Honolulu (2001); The Collected Short Novels (1999); Kowloon Tong (1997); On the Edge of the Great Rift: Three Novels of Africa (comprising Fong and the Indians, Girls at Play and Jungle Lovers) (1996); My Other Life (1996); Millroy the Magician (1994); Chicago Loop (1990); Dr. Demarr (1990); My Secret History (1989); The White Man’s Burden (1987); O-Zone (1986); Half Moon Street (1986); Doctor Slaughter (1984); The London Embassy (1983); The Mosquito Coast (1982: winner of the 1981 Yorkshire Post Novel of the Year Award and joint winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize); Picture Palace (1978: winner of the 1978 Whitbread Novel Award); The Consul’s File (1977); The Family Arsenal (1976); The Black House (1974); Saint Jack (1972); Jungle Lovers (1971); Girls at Play (1969); Murder in Mount Holly (1969); Fong and the Indians (1968); Waldo (1967) Stories The Stranger at the Palazzo D’Oro and Other Stories (2003); The Collected Stories (1997); World’s End and Other Stories (1980); Sinning With Annie and Other Stories (1972) Travel Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town (2002: shortlisted for the 2003 Thomas Cook Travel Book Award); Fresh-Air Fiend: Travel Writings, 1985-2000 (2000); The Pillars of Hercules: A Grand Tour of the Mediterranean (1995: shortlisted for the 1996 Thomas Cook Travel Book Award); To the Ends of the Earth (1993); The Happy Isles of Oceania: Paddling the Pacific (1992); Travelling the World (1990); Riding the Iron Rooster: By Train Through China (1988: winner of the 1989 Thomas Cook Travel Book Award); Sunrise with Seamonsters: Travels and Discoveries (1985); The Imperial Way (1985); Sailing Through China (1984); The Kingdom by the Sea: A Journey Around the Coast of Great Britain (1983); The Old Patagonian Express: By Train Through the Americas (1979); The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia (1975) Memoir Sir Vidia’s Shadow: A Friendship Across Five Continents (1998) Children’s London Snow: A Christmas Story (1979); A Christmas Card (1978)

Recommended
Novels Hotel Honolulu (2001); My Secret History (1989); The Mosquito Coast (1982)
Travel Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town (2002); The Pillars of Hercules: A Grand Tour of the Mediterranean (1995); Riding the Iron Rooster: By Train Through China (1988); The Old Patagonian Express: By Train Through the Americas (1979); The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia (1975)

Thursday, July 27, 2006

Jon McGREGOR ... So Many Ways to Begin (2006)

Bibliography
McGREGOR Jon [1976-] Novelist. Born in Bermuda. Novels So Many Ways to Begin (2006: longlisted for the 2006 Booker Prize for Fiction); If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things (2002: winner of a 2003 Somerset Maugham Award and the 2003 Betty Trask Prize for Best First Novel; shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book, Eurasia region, and the Best Newcomer in the 2004 British Book Awards; longlisted for the 2002 Booker Prize for Fiction)

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Good Reads

NOT SURE what to buy to read next? Here are a couple of wonderful novels you might like to consider when you next visit the bookshop. A couple of them will most probably make it to the 2006 Booker Prize for Fiction longlist on August 14, 2006.

Theft: A Love Story (2006) / Peter CAREY
Black Swan Green (2006) / David MITCHELL
Suite Française (2006) / Irène NÉMIROVSKY
Everyman (2006) / Philip ROTH
The Night Watch (2006) / Sarah WATERS

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Kate ATKINSON ... One Good Turn (2006)

KATE ATKINSON has come a long way since she achieved literary success with her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum (1995), a comic, poignant story of a dysfunctional middle-class English family and the dark secrets that punctuate the mundanity of their lives in grim, gritty Yorkshire. Ruby Lennox is one heck of a memorable character: perky, quirky, intelligent and pessimistic, a child struggling to make sense of the world around her and, in the process, exposing skeletons in the family closet. Conversational and humorous in tone and light in touch, this novel gripped me from the moment I read the first sentence (“I exist! I am conceived to the chimes of midnight on the clock on the mantelpiece in the room across the hall.”) till the end. Atkinson is a very funny writer and she has succeeded in creating an eccentric cast of compelling characters coming to grips with the sheer bloody awfulness of life. There is no denying that much of her forte as a writer lies in her observational humour and narrative exuberance.

Atkinson’s recent novel, Case Histories (2004), is quite a departure from her first novel, though equally good. Private investigator Jackson Brodie, a former police officer, is cast adrift in Cambridgeshire amidst death, intrigue and other misfortunes, bringing restorative truth to those wounded. Brodie is as nice as they come, though a tad bitter and cynical. A comic novelist, her books have been consistently entertaining. Atkinson continues her succesfull experiment in writing crime fiction with One Good Turn (2006), where she brings Brodie back in a brand-new story.

However, if you are new to Kate Atkinson, I suggest that you read Behind the Scenes at the Museum first before tackling Case Histories. Read the rest of her ouvre only if you have acquired a taste for Atkinson’s lively and conversational prose, wry observations and brilliant turns of phrase and metaphors.

Bibliography
ATKINSON Kate [1951-] Novelist, short-story writer, playwright. Born in York, England. Novels One Good Turn (2006); Case Histories (2004: shortlisted for the 2004 Whitbread Award for the Novel); Emotionally Weird: A Comic Novel (2000); Human Croquet (1997); Behind the Scenes at the Museum (1995: winner of the 1995 Whitbread First Novel and Book of the Year Awards, the 1996 Yorkshire Post Literary Award for Best First Work, and the 1996 Lire Book of the Year Award) Stories Not the End of the World (2002) Plays Abandonment (2000); Nice (1996)

Monday, July 24, 2006

Jason WEBSTER ... Guerra (2006)

Bibliography
WEBSTER Jason [1970-] Travel writer. Born in Mountain View, California, U.S. Travel Guerra: Living in the Shadows of the Spanish Civil War (2006); Andalus: Unlocking the Secrets of Moorish Spain (2004); Duende: A Journey in Search of Flamenco (published in the U.S. as Duende: A Journey Into the Heart of Flamenco) (2002)

Recommended
Duende: A Journey in Search of Flamenco (2002)

Sunday, July 23, 2006

The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, 2001-2006

2006
o Out Stealing Horses (Harvill Secker, 2005) / Per Petterson (trans. from the Norwegian by Anne Born)
o This Blinding Absence of Light (Penguin, 2005) / Tahar Ben Jelloun (trans. from the French by Linda Coverdale)
o Mercedes-Benz (Serpent’s Tail, 2005) / Pawel Huelle (trans. from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones)
o Fatelessness (Harvill Secker, 2005) / Imre Kertesz (trans. from the Hungarian by Tim Wilkinson)
o The Door (Harvill Secker, 2005) / Magda Szabo (trans. from the Hungarian by Len Rix)
o The Ministry of Pain (Saqi, 2005) / Dubravka Ugresic (trans. from the Croation by Michael Henry Heim)

2005
o Windows on the World (Fourth Estate, 2004) / Frédéric Beigbeder (trans. from the French by Frank Wynne)
o Budapest (Bloomsbury, 2004) / Chico Buarque (trans. from the Portuguese by Alison Entrekin)
o Give Me (Songs for Lovers) (Chatto & Windus, 2004) / Irina Denezhkina (trans. from the Russian by Andrew Bromfield)
o Village of Stone (Chatto & Windus, 2004) / Xiaolu Guo (trans. from the Chinese by Cindy Carter)
o Snow (Faber & Faber, 2004) / Orhan Pamuk (trans. from the Turkish by Maureen Freely)
o The Flea Palace (Marion Boyars, 2004) / Elif Shafak (trans. from the Turkish by Muge Gocek)

2004
o Soldiers of Salamis (Bloomsbury, 2003) / Javier Cercas (trans. from the Spanish by Anne McLean)
o Lizard Tails (Harvill Secker, 2003) / Juan Marsé (trans. from the Spanish by Nick Caistor)
o Mrs Sartoris (Faber & Faber, 2003) / Elke Schmitter (trans. from the German by Carol Brown Janeway)
o Money to Burn (Granta, 2003) / Ricardo Piglia (trans. from the Spanish by Amanda Hopkinson)
o Q (Heinemann, 2003) / Luther Blissett (trans. from the Italian by Shaun Whiteside)
o Welcome to Paradise (Granta, 2003) / Mahi Binebine (trans. from the French by Lulu Norman)

2003
o The Visit of the Royal Physician (Harvill Secker, 2002) / Per Olov Enquist (trans. from the Swedish by Tiina Nunnally)
o £9.99 (Picador, 2002) / Frédéric Beigbeder (trans. from the French)
o The Snowflake Constant (Faber & Faber, 2002) / Peter Stephan Jungk (trans. from the German by Michael Hofmann)
o The Feast of the Goat (Faber & Faber, 2002) / Mario Vargas Llosa (trans. from the Spanish by Edith Grossman)
o The Cave (Harvill Secker, 2002) / José Saramago (trans. from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa)
o The Athenian Murders (Abacus, 2002) / Jose Carlos Somoza (trans. from the Spanish by Sonia Soto)

2002
o Austerlitz (Hamish Hamilton, 2001) / W.G. Sebald (trans. from the German by Anthea Bell)
o Five Photos of My Wife (Flamingo, 2001) / Agnès Desarthe (trans. from the French by Adriana Hunter)
o Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (Vintage, 2001) / Dai Sijie (trans. from the French by Ina Rilke)
o Death and the Penguin (Harvill Secker, 2001) / Andrey Kurkov (trans. from the Russian by George Bird)
o Only in London (Bloomsbury, 2001) / Hanan al-Shaykh (trans. from the Arabic by Catherine Cobham)
o On the Water (Faber & Faber, 2001) / H.M. van den Brink (trans. from the Dutch by Paul Vincent)

2001
o The Alphonse Courrier Affair (2000) / Marta Morazzoni (trans. from the Italian by Emma Rose)
o The Officers’ Ward (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000) / Marc Dugain (trans. from the French by Howard Curtis)
o Atomised (also published as The Elementary Particles) (William Heinemann, 2000) / Michel Houellebecq (trans. from the French by Frank Wynne)
o The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro (Harvill Secker, 2000) / Antonio Tabucchi (trans. from the Italian by Patrick Creagh)
o Dunyazard (Saqi, 2000) / May Telmissany (trans. from the French by Roger Allen)
o Lost (Picador, 2000) / Hans-Ulrich Treichel (trans. from the German by Carol Brown Janeaway)

Saturday, July 22, 2006

The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, 1996-2006

2006
o The Master (2004) / Colm Tóibín
o Graceland (2004) / Chris Abani
o Maps for Lost Lovers (2004) / Nadeem Aslam
o Havoc, In Its Third Year (2004) / Ronan Bennett
o The Closed Circle (2004) / Jonathan Coe
o An Altered Light (2004) / Jens Christian Grøndahl (trans. from the Danish by Anne Born)
o The Swallows of Kabul (2004) / Yasmina Khadra (trans. from the French by John Cullen)
o Breaking the Tongue (2004) / Vyvyane Loh
o Don’t Move (2004) / Margaret Mazzantini (trans. from the Italian by John Cullen)
o The Logogryph (2004) / Thomas Wharton

2005
o The Known World (2003) / Edward P. Jones
o Gardening at Night (2003) / Diane Awerbuck
o The Half Brother (2003) / Lars Saabye Christensen (trans. from the Norwegian by Kenneth Steven)
o The Good Doctor (2003) / Damon Galgut
o Elle (2003) / Douglas Glover
o Phantom Pain (2003) / Arnon Grunberg (trans. from the Dutch by Sam Garrett)
o The Great Fire (2003) / Shirley Hazzard
o Willenbrock (2003) / Christoph Hein (trans. from the German by Philip Boehm)
o Deafening (2003) / Frances Itani
o The Fortress of Solitude (2003) / Jonathan Lethem

2004
o This Blinding Absence of Light (2002) / Tahar Ben Jelloun (trans. from the French by Linda Coverdale)
o The Book of Illusions (2002) / Paul Auster
o Any Human Heart (2002) / William Boyd
o Caramelo (2002) / Sandra Cisneros
o Middlesex (2002) / Jeffrey Eugenides
o The White Family (2002) / Maggie Gee
o Balthasar’s Odyssey (2002) / Amin Maalouf (trans. from the French by Barbara Bray)
o Family Matters (2002) / Rohinton Mistry
o Earth and Ashes (2002) / Atiq Rahimi (trans. from the Dari by Erdag M. Göknar)
o House of Day, House of Night (2002) / Olga Tokarczuk (trans. from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones)

2003
o My Name is Red (2001) / Orhan Pamuk (trans. from the Turkish by Erdag M. Göknar)
o The Ash Garden (2001) / Dennis Bock
o Bitter Fruit (2001) / Achmat Dangor
o The Visit of the Royal Physician (published as The Royal Physician’s Visit in the U.S.) (2001) / Per Olov Enquist (trans. from the Swedish by Tiina Nunnally)
o The Corrections (2001) / Jonathan Franzen
o The Painter of Birds (2001) / Lidia Jorge (trans. from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa)
o That They May Face The Rising Sun (2001) / John McGahern
o Bel Canto (2001) / Ann Patchett

2002
o Atomised (also published as The Elementary Particles) (2000) / Michel Houellebecq (trans. from the French by Frank Wynne)
o The Blind Assassin (2000) / Margaret Atwood
o True History of the Kelly Gang (2000) / Peter Carey
o The Keepers of Truth (2000) / Michael Collins
o The Last Samurai (2000) / Helen DeWitt
o The Years with Laura Diaz (2000) / Carlos Fuentes (trans. from the Spanish by Alfred MacAdam)

2001
o No Great Mischief (1999) / Alistair MacLeod
o The True History of Paradise (1999) / Margaret Cezair-Thompson
o The Love You Promised Me (1999) / Silvia Molina (trans. from the Spanish by David Unger)
o Our Fathers (1999) / Andrew O’Hagan
o The Clay Machine-Gun (2001) / Victor Pelevin (trans. from the Russian by Andrew Bromfield)
o The Blackwater Lightship (1999) / Colm Toibin

2000
o Wide Open (1998) / Nicola Barker
o The Hours (1998) / Michael Cunningham
o Trumpet (1998) / Jackie Kay
o This Side of Brightness (1998) / Colum McCann
o Charming Billy (1998) / Alice McDermott
o Paradise (1998) / Toni Morrison
o I Married a Communist (1998) / Philip Roth

1999
o Ingenious Pain (1997) / Andrew Miller
o Quarantine (1997) / Jim Crace
o Underworld (1997) / Don DeLillo
o The Ordinary Seaman (1997) / Francisco Goldman
o Enduring Love (1997) / Ian McEwan
o The Wind-up Bird Chronicle (1997) / Haruki Murakami (trans. from the Japanese by Jay Rubin)
o The Puttermesser Papers (1997) / Cynthia Ozick
o The Reader (1997) / Bernard Schlink (trans. from the German by Carol Brown Janeway)

1998
o The Land of Green Plums (1996) / Herta Muller (trans. from the German by Michael Hofmann)
o Alias Grace (1996) / Margaret Atwood
o Imaginings of Sand (1996) / André Brink
o The Counting House (1996) / David Dabydeen
o The Glade within the Grove (1996) / David Foster
o Autobiography of My Mother (1996) / Jamaica Kincaid
o Salt (1996) / Earl Lovelace
o The Pope’s Rhinoceros (1996) / Lawrence Norfolk
o Last Orders (1996) / Graham Swift
o The Englishman’s Boy (1996) / Guy Vanderhaeghe

1997
o A Heart So White (1997) / Javier Marias
o Reservation Blues (1995) / Alexie Sherman
o A Fine Balance (1995) / Rohinton Mistry
o Novel Without a Name (1995) / Duong Thu Huong (trans. from the Vietnamese by Phan Huy Duong and Nina McPherson)
o Declares Pereira (1995) / Antonio Tabucchi (trans. from the Italian by Patrick Creagh)
o A Tiler’s Afternoon (1993) / Lars Gustaffson (trans. from the Swedish by Tom Geddes)
o The Good Negress (also published as This Rain Coming) (1995) / A.J. Verdelle
o Morvern Callar (1995) / Alan Warner

1996
o Remembering Babylon (1993) / David Malouf
o Ghosts (1993) / John Banville
o A Way in the World (1994) / V.S. Naipaul
o The Following Story (1991) / Cees Noteboom (trans. from the Dutch by Ina Rilke)
o The Laws (1993) / Connie Palmen (trans. from the Dutch by Richard Huijing)
o The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (1991) / Jose Saramago (trans. from the Portuguese by Giovanni Pontiero)
o Away (1993) / Jane Urquhart

Friday, July 21, 2006

2006 Dylan Thomas Prize for Young Writers: Longlist

THE inaugural 2006 Dylan Thomas Prize for Young Writers is Britain’s most lucrative literary award which promotes English-language poetry and drama as well as novels and short-story collections and is restricted to authors under the age of 30. With this prize, the spirit of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas is kept aflamed. Believe it or not, the winner of the prize gets £60,000. The longlist is as follows:

Sayonara Bar (2005) / Susan BARKER
Where They Were Missed (2006) / Lucy CALDWELL
Escape Routes for Beginners (2004) / Kira COCHRANE
No Fireworks (2005) / Rodge GLASS
Torture the Artist (2004) / Joey GOEBEL
Unfeeling (2005) / Ian HOLDING
Utterly Monkey (2005) / Nick LAIRD
To a Fault (poetry) (2005) / Nick LAIRD
Taming the Beast (2005) / Emily MAGUIRE
Playing Mercy (2005) / Matthew David SCOTT
The Amnesia Clinic (2006) / James SCUDAMORE
Exposure (2005) / Talitha STEVENSON
Fresh Apples (stories) (2006) / Rachel TRESIZE
Outside Valentine (2005) / Liza WARD

The shortlist will be announced in September 22, 2006 and the winner will be declared in October 2006

Thursday, July 20, 2006

The Booker Prize for Fiction, 1969-2013

2013
o Eleanor Catton / The Luminaries (2013)
o NoViolet Bulawayo / We Need New Names (2013)
o Jim Crace / Harvest (2013)
o Jhumpa Lahiri / The Lowland (2013)
o Ruth Ozeki / A Tale for the Time Being (2013)
o Colm Toibin / The Testament of Mary (2013)

2012
o Hilary Mantel / Bring Up the Bodies (2012)
o Deborah Levy / Swimming Home (2012)
o Alison Moore / The Lighthouse (2012)
o Will Self / Umbrella (2012)
o Tan Twan Eng / The Garden of Evening Mists (2012)
o Jeet Thayil / Narcopolis (2012)

2011
o Julian Barnes / The Sense of an Ending (2011)
o Carol Birch / Jamrach’s Menagerie (2011)
o Patrick deWitt / The Sisters Brothers (2011)
o Esi Edugyan / Half-Blood Blues (2011)
o Stephen Kelman / Pigeon English (2011)
o A.D. Miller / Snowdrops (2011)

2010
o Howard Jacobson / The Finkler Question (2010)
o Peter Carey / Parrot and Olivier in America (2010)
o Emma Donoghue / Room (2010)
o Damon Galgut / In a Strange Room (2010)
o Andrea Levy / The Long Song (2010)
o Tom McCarthy / C (2010)

2009
o Hilary Mantel / Wolf Hall (2009)
o A.S. Byatt / The Children’s Book (2009)
o J.M. Coetzee / Summertime (2009)
o Adam Foulds / The Quickening Maze (2009)
o Simon Mawer / The Glass Room (2009)
o Sarah Waters / The Little Stranger (2009)

2008
o Aravind Adiga / The White Tiger (2008)
o Sebastian Barry / The Secret Scripture (2008)
o Amitav Ghosh / Sea of Poppies (2008)
o The Clothes On Our Backs / Linda Grant (2008)
o The Northern Clemency / Philip Hensher (2008)
o Steve Tolts / A Fragment of the Whole (2008)

2007
o Anne Enright / The Gathering (2007)
o Nicola Barker / Darkmans (2007)
o Mohsin Hamid / The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007)
o Lloyd Jones / Mister Pip (2007)
o Ian McEwan / On Chesil Beach (2007)
o Indra Sinha / Animal’s People (2007)

2006
o Kiran Desai / The Inheritance of Loss (2006)
o Kate Grenville / The Secret River (2006)
o M.J. Hyland / Carry Me Down (2006)
o Hisham Matar / In the Country of Men (2006)
o Edward St. Aubyn / Mother’s Milk (2006)
o Sarah Waters / The Night Watch (2006)

2005
o John Banville/ The Sea (2005)
o Julian Barnes / Arthur and George (2005)
o Sebastian Barry / A Long Long Way (2005)
o Kazuo Ishiguro / Never Let Me Go (2005)
o Ali Smith / The Accidental (2005)
o Zadie Smith / On Beauty (2005)

2004
o Alan Hollinghurst / The Line of Beauty (2004)
o Achmat Dangor / Bitter Fruit (2001, 2004)
o Sarah Hall / The Electric Michelangelo (2004)
o David Mitchell / Cloud Atlas (2004)
o Colm Tóibín / The Master (2004)
o Gerard Woodward / I’ll Go to Bed at Noon (2004)

2003
o D.B.C. Pierre / Vernon God Little (2002)
o Monica Ali / Brick Lane (2003)
o Margaret Atwood / Oryx and Crake (2003)
o Damon Galgut / The Good Doctor (2003)
o Zoë Heller / Notes on a Scandal (2003)
o Clare Morrall / Astonishing Splashes of Colour (2003)

2002
o Yann Martel / Life of Pi (2001)
o Rohinton Mistry / Family Matters (2002)
o Carol Shields / Unless (2002)
o William Trevor / The Story of Lucy Gault (2002)
o Sarah Waters / Fingersmith (2002)
o Tim Winton / Dirt Music (2001)

2001
o Peter Carey / True History of the Kelly Gang (2000)
o Ian McEwan / Atonement (2001)
o Andrew Miller / Oxygen (2001)
o David Mitchell / number9dream (2001)
o Rachel Seiffert / The Dark Room (2001)
o Ali Smith / Hotel World (2001)

2000
o Margaret Atwood / The Blind Assassin (2000)
o Trezza Azzopardi / The Hiding Place (2000)
o Michael Collins / The Keepers of Truth (2000)
o Kazuo Ishiguro / When We Were Orphans (2000)
o Matthew Kneale / English Passengers (2000)
o Brian O’Doherty / The Deposition of Father McGreevy (1999)

1999
o J.M. Coetzee / Disgrace (1999)
o Anita Desai / Fasting, Feasting (1999)
o Michael Frayn / Headlong (1999)
o Andrew O’Hagan / Our Fathers (1999)
o Ahdaf Soueif / The Map of Love(1999)
o Colm Tóibín, The Blackwater Lightship (1999)

1998
o Ian McEwan / Amsterdam (1998)
o Beryl Bainbridge / Master Georgie (1998)
o Julian Barnes / England, England (1998)
o Martin Booth / The Industry of Souls (1998)
o Patrick McCabe / Breakfast on Pluto (1988)
o Magnus Mills / The Restraint of Beasts (1988)

1997
o Arundhati Roy / The God of Small Things (1997)
o Jim Crace / Quarantine (1997)
o Mick Jackson / The Underground Man (1997)
o Bernard MacLaverty / Grace Notes (1997)
o Tim Parks / Europa (1997)
o Madeline St John / The Essence of the Thing (1997)

1996
o Graham Swift / Last Orders (1996)
o Margaret Atwood / Alias Grace (1996)
o Beryl Bainbridge / Every Man for Himself(1996)
o Seamus Deane / Reading in the Dark (1996)
o Shena Mackay / The Orchard on Fire (1995)
o Rohinton Mistry / A Fine Balance (1995)

1995
o Pat Barker / The Ghost Road (1995)
o Justin Cartwright / In Every Face I Meet (1995)
o Salman Rushdie / The Moor’s Last Sigh (1995)
o Barry Unsworth / Morality Play (1995)
o Tim Winton / The Riders (1994)

1994
o James Kelman / How Late It Was, How Late (1994)
o Romesh Gunesekera / Reef (1994)
o Abdulrazak Gurnah / Paradise (1994)
o Alan Hollinghurst / The Folding Star (1994)
o George Mackay Brown / Beside the Ocean of Time (1994)
o Jill Paton Walsh / Knowledge of Angels (1994)

1993
o Roddy Doyle / Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha (1993)
o Tibor Fischer / Under the Frog (1992)
o Michael Ignatieff / Scar Tissue (1993)
o David Malouf / Remembering Babylon (1993)
o Caryl Phillips / Crossing the River (1993)
o Carol Shields / The Stone Diaries (1993)

1992
o Michael Ondaatje / The English Patient (1992)
o Barry Unsworth / Sacred Hunger (1992)
o Christopher Hope / Serenity House (1992)
o Patrick McCabe / The Butcher Boy (1992)
o Ian McEwan/ Black Dogs (1992)
o Michèle Roberts / Daughters of the House (1992)

1991
o Ben Okri / The Famished Road (1991)
o Martin Amis / Time’s Arrow (1991)
o Roddy Doyle / The Van (1991)
o Rohinton Mistry / Such a Long Journey (1991)
o Timothy Mo / The Redundancy of Courage (1991)
o William Trevor / Reading Turgenev (from Two Lives) (1991)

1990
o A.S. Byatt / Possession: A Romance (1990)
o Beryl Bainbridge / An Awfully Big Adventure (1989)
o Penelope Fitzgerald / The Gate of Angels (1990)
o John McGahern / Amongst Women (1990)
o Brian Moore / Lies of Silence (1990)
o Mordecai Richler / Solomon Gursky Was Here (1989)

1989
o Kazuo Ishiguro / The Remains of the Day (1989)
o Margaret Atwood / Cat’s Eye (1988)
o John Banville / The Book of Evidence (1989)
o Sybille Bedford / Jigsaw (1989)
o James Kelman / A Disaffection (1989)
o Rose Tremain / Restoration (1989)

1988
o Peter Carey / Oscar and Lucinda (1988)
o Bruce Chatwin / Utz (1988)
o Penelope Fitzgerald / The Beginning of Spring (1988)
o David Lodge / Nice Work (1988)
o Salman Rushdie / The Satanic Verses (1988)
o Marina Warner / The Lost Father (1987)

1987
o Penelope Lively / Moon Tiger (1987)
o Chinua Achebe / Anthills of the Savannah (1987)
o Peter Ackroyd / Chatterton (1987)
o Nina Bawden / Circles of Deceit (1987)
o Brian Moore / The Colour of Blood (1987)
o Iris Murdoch / The Book and the Brotherhood (1987)

1986
o Kingsley Amis / The Old Devils (1986)
o Margaret Atwood / The Handmaid’s Tale 1985)
o Paul Bailey / Gabriel’s Lament (1986)
o Robertson Davies / What’s Bred in the Bone (1985)
o Kazuo Ishiguro / An Artist of the Floating World (1986)
o Timothy Mo / An Insular Possession (1986)

1985
o Keri Hulme / The Bone People (1983)
o Peter Carey / Illywhacker (1985)
o J.L. Carr / The Battle of Pollocks Crossing (1985)
o Doris Lessing / The Good Terrorist (1985)
o Jan Morris / Last Letters from Hav (1985)
o Iris Murdoch / The Good Apprentice (1985)

1984
o Anita Brookner / Hotel du Lac (1984)
o J.G. Ballard / Empire of the Sun (1984)
o Julian Barnes / Flaubert’s Parrot (1984)
o Anita Desai / In Custody (1984)
o Penelope Lively / According to Mark (1984)
o David Lodge / Small World (1984)

1983
o J.M. Coetzee / Life and Times of Michael K (1983)
o Malcolm Bradbury / Rates of Exchange (1983)
o John Fuller / Flying to Nowhere (1983)
o Anita Mason / The Illusionist (1983)
o Salman Rushdie / Shame (1983)
o Graham Swift / Waterland (1983)

1982
o Thomas Keneally / Schindler’s Ark (1982)
o John Arden / Silence Among the Weapons (1983)
o William Boyd / An Ice-Cream War (1983)
o Lawrence Durrell / Constance; Or, Solitary Practices (1982)
o Alice Thomas Ellis / The 27th Kingdom (1982)
o Timothy Mo / Sour Sweet (1982)

1981
o Salman Rushdie / Midnight’s Children (1981)
o Molly Keane / Good Behaviour (1981)
o Doris Lessing / The Sirian Experiments (1981)
o Ian McEwan / The Comfort of Strangers (1981)
o Ann Schlee / Rhine Journey (1981)
o Muriel Spark / Loitering with Intent (1981)
o D.M. Thomas / The White Hotel (1981)

1980
o William Golding / Rites of Passage (1980)
o Anthony Burgess / Earthly Powers (1980)
o Anita Desai / Clear Light of Day (1980)
o Alice Munro / The Beggar Maid (1978)
o Julian O’Faolain / No Country for Young Men (1980)
o Barry Unsworth / Pascali’s Island (1980)
o J.L. Carr / A Month in the Country (1980)

1979
o Penelope Fitzgerald / Offshore (1979)
o Thomas Keneally / Confederates (1979)
o V.S. Naipaul / A Bend in the River (1979)
o Julian Rathbone / Joseph (1979)
o Fay Weldon / Praxis (1978)

1978
o Iris Murdoch / The Sea, the Sea (1978)
o Kingsley Amis / Jake’s Thing (1978)
o André Brink / Rumours of Rain (1978)
o Penelope Fitzgerald / The Bookshop (1978)
o Jane Gardam / God on the Rocks (1978)
o Bernice Rubens / A Five-Year Sentence (1978)

1977
o Paul Scott / Staying On (1977)
o Paul Bailey / Peter Smart’s Confessions (1977)
o Caroline Blackwood / Great Granny Webster (1977)
o Jennifer Johnston / Shadows on our Skin (1977)
o Penelope Lively / The Road to Lichfield (1977)
o Barbara Pym / Quartet in Autumn (1977)

1976
o David Storey / Saville (1976)
o André Brink / An Instant in the Wind (1976)
o R.C. Hutchinson / Rising (1976)
o Brian Moore / The Doctor’s Wife (1976)
o Julian Rathbone / King Fisher Lives (1976)
o William Trevor / The Children of Dynmouth (1976)

1975
o Ruth Prawer Jhabvala / Heat and Dust (1975)
o Thomas Keneally / Gossip from the Forest (1975)

1974
o Nadine Gordimer / The Conservationist (1974)
o Stanley Middleton / Holiday (1974)
o Kingsley Amis / Ending Up (1974)
o Beryl Bainbridge / The Bottle Factory Outing (1974)
o C.P. Snow / In Their Wisdom (1974)

1973
o J.G. Farrell / The Siege of Krishnapur (1973)
o Beryl Bainbridge / The Dressmaker (1973)
o Elizabeth Mavor / The Green Equinox (1973)
o Iris Murdoch / The Black Prince (1973)

1972
o John Berger / G. (1972)
o Susan Hill / The Bird of Night (1972)
o Thomas Keneally / The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1972)
o David Storey / Pasmore (1972)

1971
o V.S. Naipaul / In a Free State (1971)
o Thomas Kilroy / The Big Chapel (1971)
o Doris Lessing / Briefing for a Descent into Hell (1971)
o Mordecai Richler / St Urbain’s Horseman (1971)
o Derek Robinson / Goshawk Squadron (1971)
o Elizabeth Taylor / Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont (1971)

1970
o Bernice Rubens / The Elected Member (1969)
o A.L. Barker / John Brown’s Body (1969)
o Elizabeth Bowen / Eva Trout (1968)
o Iris Murdoch / Bruno’s Dream (1969)
o William Trevor / Mrs Eckdorf in O’Neill’s Hotel (1969)
o T.W. Wheeler / The Conjunction (1970)

1969
o Percy Howard Newby / Something to Answer For (1969)
o Barry England / Figures in a Landscape (1968)
o Nicholas Mosley / Impossible Object (1968)
o Iris Murdoch / The Nice and the Good (1968)
o Muriel Spark / The Public Image (1968)
o G.M. Williams / From Scenes like These (1969)

illustration by dan james

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

The Orange Prize for Fiction, 1996-2009

2009
o Marilynne Robinson / Home (Virago, 2008)
o Ellen Feldman / Scottsboro (Picador, 2008)
o Samantha Harvey / The Wilderness (Jonathan Cape, 2009)
o Samantha Hunt / The Invention of Everything Else (Harvill Secker, 2008)
o Deidre Madden / Molly Fox’s Birthday (Faber & Faber, 2008)
o Kamila Shamsie / Burnt Shadows (Bloomsbury, 2009)

2006
o Zadie Smith / On Beauty (2005)
o Nicole Krauss / The History of Love (2005)
o Hilary Mantel / Beyond Black (2005)
o Ali Smith / The Accidental (2005)
o Carrie Tiffany / Everyman’s Rules for Scientific Living (2005)
o Sarah Waters / The Night Watch (2006)

2005
o Lionel Shriver / We Need to Talk About Kevin (2004)
o Joolz Denby / Billie Morgan (2004)
o Jane Gardam / Old Filth (2004)
o Sheri Holman / The Mammoth Cheese (2004)
o Marina Lewycka / A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian (2004)
o Maile Meloy / Liars and Saints (2004)

2004
o Andrea Levy / Small Island (2004)
o Margaret Atwood / Oryx and Crake (2003)
o Shirley Hazzard / The Great Fire (2003)
o Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie / Purple Hibiscus (2003)
o Gillian Slovo / Ice Road (2003)
o Rose Tremain / The Colour (2003)

2003
o Valerie Martin / Property (2002)
o Anne Donovan / Buddha Da (2002)
o Shena Mackay / Heligoland (2002)
o Carol Shields / Unless (2002)
o Zadie Smith / The Autograph Man (2002)
o Donna Tartt / The Little Friend (2002)

2002
o Ann Patchett / Bel Canto (2001)
o Anna Burns / No Bones (2001)
o Helen Dunmore / The Siege (2001)
o Maggie Gee / The White Family (2001)
o Chloe Hooper / A Child’s Book of True Crime (2001)
o Sarah Waters / Fingersmith (2001)

2001
o Kate Grenville / The Idea of Perfection (2000)
o Margaret Atwood / The Blind Assassin (2000)
o Ali Smith / Hotel World (2000)
o Rosina Lippi / Homestead (2000)
o Jane Smiley / Horse Heaven (2000)
o Jill Dawson / Fred and Edie (2000)

2000
o Linda Grant / When I Lived in Modern Times (1999)
o Judy Budnitz / If I Told You Once (1999)
o Eilis Ni Dhuibhne / The Dancers Dancing (1999)
o Zadie Smith / White Teeth (1999)
o Elizabeth Strout / Amy and Isabelle (1999)
o Rebecca Wells / Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (1999)

1999
o Suzanne Berne / A Crime in the Neighbourhood (1998)
o Jane Hamilton / The Short History of a Prince (1998)
o Barbara Kingsolver / The Poisonwood Bible (1998)
o Toni Morrison / Paradise (1998)
o Julia Blackburn / The Leper’s Companions (1998)
o Marilyn Bowering / Visible Worlds (1998)

1998
o Carol Shields / Larry’s Party (1997)
o Kirsten Bakis / Lives of the Monster Dogs (1997)
o Pauline Melville / The Ventriloquist’s Tale (1997)
o Ann Patchett / The Magician’s Assistant (1997)
o Deirdre Purcell / Love Like Hate Adore (1997)
o Anita Shreve / The Weight of Water (1997)

1997
o Anne Michaels / Fugitive Pieces (1996)
o Margaret Atwood / Alias Grace (1996)
o Jane Mendelsohn / I Was Amelia Earhart (1996)
o Deirdre Madden / One by One in the Darkness (1996)
o E. Annie Proulx / Accordion Crimes (1996)
o Manda Scott / Hen’s Teeth (1996)

1996
o Helen Dunmore / A Spell of Winter (1995)
o Julia Blackburn / The Book of Colour (1995)
o Pagan Kennedy / Spinsters (1995)
o Amy Tan /The Hundred Secret Senses (1995)
o Anne Tyler / Ladder of Years (1995)
o Marianne Wiggins / Eveless Eden (1995)

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

2006 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Prize: Shortlist

THE SHORTLIST for the 2006 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Prize, the world’s richest short-story prize, has been announced. The winner will be announced and presented during the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Festival on September 24, 2006. Last year Yiyun Li received the inaugural prize for her début collection of short stories, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers (2005).

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (2006) / Haruki Murakami (trans. from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel and Jay Rubin)
Notes from a Turkish Whorehouse (2006) / Philip Ó Ceallaigh
The First Hurt (2006) / Rachel Sherman
In Strange Gardens and Other Stories (2006) / Peter Stamm (trans. from the German by Michael Hofmann)
The Darkness of Wallis Simpson (2005) / Rose Tremain
The Royal Ghosts (2006) / Samrat Upadhyay

Monday, July 17, 2006

William BOYD ... Restless (2006)

Bibliography
BOYD William [1952-] Novelist, short-story writer. Born in Accra, Ghana. Novels Restless (2006); Any Human Heart: The Intimate Journals of Logan Montstuart (2002); Nat Tate: An American Artist 1928-1960 (1998); Armadillo (1998); The Blue Afternoon (1993: winner of the 1993 Sunday Express Book of the Year Award and the 1995 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction); Brazzaville Beach (1990: winner of the 1990 James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the 1991 McVitie’s Prize for Scottish Writer of the Year); The New Confessions (1987); School Ties (1985); Stars and Bars (1984); An Ice-Cream War (1982: winner of the 1982 Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize; shortlisted for the 1982 Booker Prize for Fiction); A Good Man in Africa (1981: winner of the 1982 Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the 1981 Whitbread First Novel Award and the 1982 Somerset Maugham Award; shortlisted for the 1982 Booker Prize for Fiction) Stories Fascination (2004); On the Yankee Station and Other Stories (1981); The Destiny of Natalie ‘X’ and Other Stories (1995) Nonfiction Bamboo (2005)

Sunday, July 16, 2006

Pankaj MISHRA ... Temptations of the West (Farrar, Straus and Giroux/Picador, 2006)

Bibliography
MISHRA Pankaj [1969-] Novelist, essayist, literary critic. Born in Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh, India. Novel The Romantics (1999: winner of the 2000 Los Angeles Times/Art Seidenbaum Book Prize for First Fiction) Nonfiction An End to Suffering: The Buddha in the World (2004) Travel Temptations of the West: How to be Modern in India, Pakistan and Beyond (2006); Butter Chicken in Ludhiana: Travels in Small Town India (1995) Edited India in Mind (2005); V.S. Naipaul’s Literary Occasions: Essays (2003); V.S. Naipaul’s The Writer and the World: Essays (2002)

Saturday, July 15, 2006

Richard BRAUTIGAN ... Revenge of the Lawn: Stories, 1962-1970 (1971)

Bibliography
BRAUTIGAN Richard [1935-1984] Novelist, short-story writer, poet. Born in Spokane, Washington, U.S. Novels So the Wind Won’t Blow it All Away (1982); Dreaming of Babylon: A Private Eye Novel (1977); Sombrero Fallout: A Japanese Novel (1976); Willard and His Bowling Trophies: A Perverse Mystery (1975); The Hawkline Monster: A Gothic Western (1974); In Watermelon Sugar (1968); Trout Fishing in America (1967); The Abortion: An Historical Romance, 1966 (1966); A Confederate General from Big Sur (1964) Stories The Tokyo-Montana Express (1980); Revenge of the Lawn: Stories, 1962-1970 (1970) Poetry June 30, June 30 (1978); Loading Mercury with a Pitchfork (1976); Rommel Drives on Deep into Egypt (1970); The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster (1968); All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace (1967); The Octopus Frontier (1960); Lay the Marble Tea: Twenty-four Poems (1959); The Galilee Hitch-Hiker (1958); The Return of the Rivers (1957)

Recommended
Stories Revenge of the Lawn: Stories, 1962-1970 (1970)

Friday, July 14, 2006

2006 Forward Poetry Prize

NOBEL PRIZE LAUREATE Seamus Heaney has been shortlisted for the 2006 Forward Poetry Prize for his new collection of poems, District and Circle (2006). Robin Robertson, Vicki Feaver and Paul Farley are on the shortlist as well.

Forward Prize for Best Collection
Quicksand Beach (Seren, 2006) / Kate Bingham
Tramp in Flames (Picador, 2006) / Paul Farley
The Book of Blood (Jonathan Cape, 2006) / Vicki Feaver
District and Circle (Faber & Faber, 2006) / Seamus Heaney
Swithering (Picador, 2006) / Robin Robertson
Redgrove’s Wife (Bloodaxe, 2006) / Penelope Shuttle

Forward/Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection
Countries of the Body (Aark Arts, 2006) / Tishani Doshi
Impossible Objects (Cinnamon Press, 2006) / Bill Greenwell
Call Centre Love Song (Salt Publishing, 2006) / Ian Gregson
Autumnologist (Arrowhead Press, 2006) / Anne Ryland
Stranded in Sub-Atomica (Donut Press, 2006) / Tim Turnbull
Boys’ Night Out in the Afternoon (Donut Press, 2006) / Tim Wells

The winners will be announced on October 4, 2006, in London

Thursday, July 13, 2006

2006 PEN/J.R. Ackerley Prize for Literary Autobiography Winner

ALAN BENNETT’s Untold Stories (Faber & Faber, 2005) has been declared the winner of the 2006 PEN/J.R. Ackerley Prize for Literary Autobiography.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Norman RUSH

Bibliography
RUSH Norman [1933-] Novelist, short-story writer. Born in San Francisco, California, U.S. Novels Subtle Bodies (a work-in-progress); Mortals (2003); Mating (1991: winner of the 1991 National Book Award for Fiction) Stories Whites (1986: shortlisted for the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction)

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Bill BRYSON ... The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid (2006)

BILL BRYSON, one of my favourite writers, has a new book out, a memoir called The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid (2006). I enjoy his travel books immensely; he has an eye for the lively anecdote and never fail to come up with beautiful turns of phrase sprinkled with a delicious cocktail of affection, cynicism, humour and irony.

Bibliography
BRYSON Bill [1951-] Travel writer, humourist. Born William McGuire Bryson in Des Moines, Iowa, U.S. Travel Bill Bryson’s African Diary (2002); Down Under (published in the U.S. as In a Sunburned Country) (2000); Notes from a Big Country (published in the U.S. as I’m a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After Twenty Years Away) (1998); A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail (1997); Notes from a Small Island (1995); Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe (1993); The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America (1989) Nonfiction A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003: winner of the 2004 Aventis Science Book Prize); Troublesome Words (2002); Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States (1994); Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way (1989); Troublesome Words (published in the U.S. as Bryson’s Dictionary of Troublesome Words: A Writer’s Guide to Getting It Right) (1982) Biography Shakespeare (2007) Memoir The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid (2006)

Recommended
Travel Down Under (published as In a Sunburned Country in the U.S.) (2000); A Walk in the Woods (1997); The Lost Continent (1989)