Edward P. Jones continues to receive accolades for his National Book Critics Circle Award. This AP article gives some more insight on Jones and his book, The Known World. Could a Pulitzer be around the corner? In the San Francisco Chronicle, a considerable profile of T. C. Boyle. It looks like Boyle’s next book will be called The Inner Circle. This one will be about Dr. Alfred Kinsey, a real life sex researcher from the 1940s and 50s. And the New York Times Book Review finally finished reading William Vollmann’s massive treatise on violence, Rising Up and Rising Down, (weighing in at 3,299 pages) and makes the review its cover story. They appreciate the expanse of the work, but not so much the content.
Award Winner, New Book, Big Book
Booker Shortlist – With Excerpts!
Forget the longlist. The Booker Prize shortlist is here, and favorites Peter Carey and David Mitchell didn’t make the cut, clearing the field for lesser known writers as the Guardian describes. Those that did make the list are:The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai – ExcerptThe Secret River by Kate Grenville – ExcerptCarry Me Down by M.J. Hyland – ExcerptIn the Country of Men by Hisham Matar – ExcerptMother’s Milk by Edward St. Aubyn – ExcerptThe Night Watch by Sarah Waters – ExcerptBonus Links: The new favorite? According to the oddsmakers, it’s Sarah Waters by a wide margin. Maud collects reviews and interviews to accompany the shortlist.
2011 National Book Award Winners Announced
The National Book Award winners for 2011 have been announced. The big prize for fiction went to Jesmyn Ward for Salvage the Bones, a novel one critic called “Katrina-drenched” and another “gritty, loamy and alive.” (excerpt)
The non-fiction award went to The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Shakespeare scholar Stephen Greenblatt (excerpt). The Poetry award was won by Nikky Finney for Head Off & Split. The winner in the Young People’s Literature category was Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai (excerpt).
Chinese Novelist Mo Yan Wins the Nobel Prize for Literature
China has its first literary Nobel Laureate as the prize has gone to 57-year-old novelist Mo Yan. Yan is said to make use of magical realism and satire in addressing China’s recent history. His books have been frequently banned in China and “Mo Yan” is a pen name meaning “don’t speak.” Yan’s given name is Guan Moye.
During our Year in Reading last year, author Alex Shakar wrote about Yan’s novel Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out.
Yan’s style here is maximalistic, headlong, sloppy to be sure, but bursting with life; or rather, lives — human and otherwise. A Chinese landowner is executed at the dawn of the Cultural Revolution, and the story follows him literally to hell and back, again and again as he’s reborn in a progression of animal incarnations. Each time, he winds up near his former family and participates in its dramas, goes on animal adventures, and witnesses the hardships, cruelties, and absurdities of life in China over the last half-century. Mo Yan himself shows up as a character from time to time.
Yan’s other books available in English include:
Red Sorghum (which was made into a feature film)
The Garlic Ballads
Big Breasts & Wide Hips
The Republic of Wine
Shifu, You’ll Do Anything for a Laugh
Change
Explosions and Other Stories
Forthcoming in January: Pow!
He also has a story in the collection of Chinese short fiction Chairman Mao Would Not Be Amused
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Hot Book Tournament Action
The action at TMN’s Tournament of books continues. Judge Marcus Sakey shocked the world by selecting The Emperor’s Children over The Echo Maker, which was, to my mind, the presumptive favorite having taken down the National Book Award and all manner of praise from critics spanning the globe. But this, folks, is why we play the games. The Echo Maker going down early hurts our chances to win this thing as we had it going all the way (my pdf bracket). Luckily, a number of other folks had the book going far as well, so the damage is somewhat limited. In other news, the little rat that could, Firmin, made it through round one, selected by judge Sarah Hepola over Brookland, which she found to be “so boring.”And today we have The Road coming out ahead of The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo as judged by Maria Schneider. The result: Condalmo and I remain deadlocked at the top.
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Canadian Short Story Master Alice Munro Wins the Nobel Prize for Literature
Alice Munro, called by the Nobel committee “Master of the contemporary short story,” has won the 2013 Nobel Prize for literature. Munro, 82, is the first Canadian to take the prize. She told a National Post reporter earlier this year that she’s retiring from writing.
Those looking for an in depth introduction to Munro’s work should read Ben Dolnick’s “A Beginner’s Guide to Alice Munro,” which he introduces thus:
Considering which of Alice Munro’s stories to read can feel something like considering what to eat from an enormous box of chocolates. There are an overwhelming number of choices, many of which have disconcertingly similar appearances — and, while you’re very likely to choose something delicious, there is the slight but real possibility of finding yourself stuck with, say, raspberry ganache.
Munro is perhaps best represented by the various short story compilations collecting her best works:
Selected Stories (1996)
Vintage Munro (2004)
Carried Away: A Selection of Stories (2006)
Munro has published a number of books over her long career:
Dance of the Happy Shades (1968)
Lives of Girls and Women (1971)
Something I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You (1974)
The Beggar Maid (1978) (As close as Munro has ever come to writing a novel)
The Moons of Jupiter (1982)
The Progress of Love (1986)
Friend of My Youth (1990)
Open Secrets (1994)
The Love of a Good Woman (1998)
Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage (2001) (#9 on our Best Books of the Millennium List)
Runaway (2004)
The View from Castle Rock (2006)
Too Much Happiness (2009)
Dear Life (2012) (Our review)
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Booker longlist is here
As many other book bloggers have noted, the illustrious Man Booker Prize longlist was announced today:The Harmony Silk Factory by Tash AwThe Sea by John BanvilleArthur & George by Julian BarnesA Long Long Way by Sebastian BarrySlow Man by JM CoetzeeIn the Fold by Rachel CuskNever Let Me Go by Kazuo IshiguroAll For Love by Dan JacobsonA Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina LewyckaBeyond Black by Hilary MantelSaturday by Ian McEwanThe People’s Act of Love by James MeekShalimar the Clown by Salman RushdieThe Accidental by Ali SmithOn Beauty by Zadie SmithThis Thing of Darkness by Harry ThompsonThis is the Country by William WallWith four previous winners in the running, the longlist is being hailed as one of the best ever, and it looks like the story this year will be if any of the newcomers can surpass the bigger names. My early pick is the Ishiguro, but we’ll see who the degenerate gamblers favor.As an aside, can I just say that the longlist/shortlist thing that the Brits do is the best way to run a literary prize. The longlist provides plenty of fodder for discussion as well as some insight into the judges’ thinking. The controversy that surrounded last years National Book Award finalists would have been much dampened if that short list had been preceded by a longlist.See also: For complete Booker longlist coverage, visit the Literary Saloon.
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