By now you’ve read the result, Toni Morrison’s A Mercy edged out Tom Piazza’s City of Refuge to win The Tournament of Books. Now, if I were a betting man, and it were possible to bet on the Pulitzer winner, I’d bet on A Mercy. Why? The Tournament of Books has called the Pulitzer winner the last two years running. In 2008, Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao took home the Pulitzer on the heels of the Rooster. And in 2007, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road saw its Pulitzer win presaged by not just a Rooster, but also its unlikely companion, an Oprah’s book club pick. On April 20th, we’ll see if the Rooster still has the jump on America’s oldest literary prize.
Bold Prediction: A Mercy Wins the Pulitzer
Your Guide to the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize Shortlist
Umberto Eco’s fifth novel, The Prague Cemetery is the headline choice for this year’s Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, the winner of which is due to be announced on May 14.
2012: The Year With No Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
For the first time since A River Runs Through It failed to win in 1977, no award was given in the Fiction category.
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2015 National Book Award Shortlists Released
Book award season is peaking along with the autumn leaves as the National Book Award shortlists have been released in four categories. These have been whittled down from last month's longlists, and the winners will be announced in New York City on November 18.
You read about nearly all of the books on the Fiction shortlist here first, as they appeared in our indispensable first-half and second-half previews.
Here’s a list of the finalists in all four categories with bonus links and excerpts where available:
Fiction:
Refund by Karen E. Bender ("For What Purpose")
The Turner House by Angela Flournoy (Dynamite Detroit Debut: On Angela Flournoy’s The Turner House)
Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff (the book's opening passage, The Most Joyous Part: The Millions Interviews Lauren Groff, Lauren Groff writing at The Millions)
Fortune Smiles by Adam Johnson (excerpt)
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara (Two Lives: On Hanya Yanagihara and Atticus Lish, ‘I Wouldn’tve Had a Biography at All’: The Millions Interviews Hanya Yanagihara)
Nonfiction:
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates ("We Know Less Than We Think We Do")
Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs by Sally Mann (excerpt)
The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration Into the Wonder of Consciousness by Sy Montgomery (excerpt)
If the Oceans Were Ink: An Unlikely Friendship and a Journey to the Heart of the Quran by Carla Power (excerpt)
Ordinary Light: A Memoir by Tracy K. Smith (A Field Guide to Silences: On Tracy K. Smith’s Ordinary Light)
Poetry:
Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay (the title poem)
How to Be Drawn by Terrance Hayes (poem)
Voyage of the Sable Venus by Robin Coste Lewis (poem)
Bright Dead Things by Ada Limón (Charring the Page: On Ada Limón’s Bright Dead Things)
Elegy for a Broken Machine by Patrick Phillips (the title poem)
Young People's Literature:
The Thing About Jellyfish by Ali Benjamin (excerpt)
Bone Gap by Laura Ruby (excerpt)
Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War by Steve Sheinkin (excerpt)
Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman (excerpt)
Nimona by Noelle Stevenson (interview)
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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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2011 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction Nominees Announced
The nominees for the 2011 PEN/Faulkner fiction award have been announced. The books in the running are Millions Hall of Famer A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (Egan profiled at The Millions); The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg (Eisenberg profiled at The Millions); National Book Award winner Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon; Model Home by Eric Puchner (one of our "20 More Under 40"); and Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives by Brad Watson (Brad Watson's Year in Reading 2009).
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2013 National Book Award Winners Announced
The 2013 National Book Award winners were announced tonight in New York City. The big prize for Fiction went to James McBride for The Good Lord Bird. Upon arriving at the podium to accept his honor, the noticeably shocked author quipped, "I didn't think I would win today. ... If any of the other writers had won, I wouldn't feel bad because they are all fine writers, but it sure is nice to win." His novel, a "literary rendering of John Brown," the white abolitionist who led an unsuccessful raid on the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia in 1859, deploys an artfulness and an irreverence that, according to one critic, "becomes not a lampooning of champions and calamities but a new kind of homage."
The Nonfiction award went to George Packer for his "awe-inspiring X-Ray of the modern American soul," The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America. Don't miss our full review.
The Poetry award was won by Mary Szybist for Incarnadine. During her acceptance, the poet remarked that, "Poetry is the place where speaking differently is the most prevalent." The winner in the Young People's Literature category was Cynthia Kadohata for The Thing About Luck.
Earlier in the presentation, E.L. Doctorow accepted the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. As our own Bill Morris attests, the award was well-deserved.
Bonus Links: Earlier in the year we dove into both the Shortlist and the Longlist to share excerpts and reviews where available.
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The Best of the Best of the Best
In what seems peripherally related to our recent exercise in award aggregation, The Prizewinners, the Booker Prize recently announced their Best of the Booker, a prize to commeorate the 40th anniversary of the Prize and also to name the "best overall novel to have won the prize." It went, somewhat predictably, to Salman Rushdie for Midnight's Children - the book also won when the Booker gave out a similar award 15 years ago. Scott, however, makes a very compelling argument that J.G. Farrell's "novel of imperial decay," The Siege of Krishnapur, deserved to be honored instead.Meanwhile, in what seems peripherally related to our recent exercise in books-in-translation aggregation, The Prizewinners International, the Lit Saloon points us to The Times' (UK) list of "the 50 outstanding literary translations from the last 50 years," presented alphabetically. Some Millions favorites like The Master and Margarita, 100 Years of Solitude, and If on a Winter's Night a Traveler appear. Interestingly, Edith Grossman, one of the most celebrated translators in recent years, does not make the list.
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