Shortlisted for 2012 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize Shortlisted for 2011 Costa Prize for Fiction Five words from the blurb: Jamaica, Chinatown, business, political, transforming Pao is only fourteen-year-old when he arrives in Jamaica in 1938; fleeing the violence of the Chinese revolution. He finds a home with his mother and brother in Chinatown and they try [...]
Posts under ‘Book Prizes’
The 2012 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize Shortlist
Yesterday the 2012 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize shortlist was announced. The prize is Awarded for best first book and is open to writers from the Commonwealth who have had their first novel (full length work of fiction) published between 1 January and 31 December 2011. The shortlisted books are: Asia Rebirth by Jahnavi Barua (India) The Wandering Falcon [...]
The 2012 Orange Prize Shortlist
The shortlist for the 2012 Orange Prize has just been announced as: My thoughts on the shortlist The 2012 Orange shortlist contains an eclectic mix of books. All are well written and none look out of place on a prize shortlist; but whilst I’m not surprised by the inclusion of any single book, the shortlist as a whole [...]
Who will be shortlisted for the 2012 Orange Prize?
The shortlist for the 2012 Orange Prize will be announced at 9.30am GMT tomorrow. I have tried all the books on the longlist and so, as usual, I will try to predict the judge’s choices. A Year of Happy Books This year the judges seem to favour happy books. Darker subject matters were occasionally approached, but when done so [...]
Two More Oranges
The Pink Hotel by Anna Stothard Five words from the blurb: girl, Los Angeles, mother, photographs, men The Pink Hotel is the story of a seventeen-year-old English girl who flies to Los Angeles for her mother’s funeral. Abandoned as a toddler, she knows little about her mother and so takes the opportunity to discover as much [...]
Island of Wings by Karin Altenberg
Longlisted for 2012 Orange Prize Five words from the blurb: islands, family, love, minister, hardship Island of Wings is set on the remote Scottish island of St Kilda and focuses on Neil and Lizzie MacKenzie, a young couple who arrived on the island in 1830. Neil MacKenzie is a minister who aimed to improve the lives [...]
