Pulitzer for McCarthy

The Pulitzer Prizes were announced a few hours ago and the fiction prize this year goes to Cormac McCarthy for his highly acclaimed novel The Road. Here's the blurb from the book jacket to whet your appetite ...

A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.

The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, “each the other’s world entire,” are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.

You can also find an extract here.

Don't know about you, but it sounds like a must-read for me!

Ray Bradbury was given a special citation for his:

... distinguished, prolific and deeply influential career as an unmatched author of science fiction and fantasy.

This makes me very happy as Bradbury's short stories, discovered when I was fifteen or so, have given me enormous pleasure.

Anyway, what was it that we were saying about silly snobbishness and genre fiction the other day?

You can find the full list of prize winners and infomation about them here.