The regional winners of this year's Commonwealth Writers' prizes have been announced, Lindesay Irvine reports in the Guardian, and I'm so happy to read that Indra Sinha's Animal's People (which was also shortlisted for the Booker) took the best book award for the Europe and Asia region. The novel was praised by the judges for :... its fiercely original, zesty style, coupled with seriousness of theme and intent ...
The regional Best First Book prize went to A Golden Age by Bangladeshi author Tahmima Anam, a fictional account of the war of independence interwoven with her own family's history was described as :...evocative and sensitive ...In the in the South East Asia and South Pacific region (our neck of the woods!) the winners were Steve Carroll's The Time We Have Taken (Best Book) and The Anatomy of Wings by Karen Foxlee (Best First Book). (More about the novels on the Australian website.)
In the Africa region, Karen King-Aribisala's novel The Hangman's Game took Best Book. Best First Book went to Imagine This by Sade Adeniran.In the Canada and Caribbean region, Lawrence Hill won for The Book of Negroes (Best Book) and CS Richardson for The End of the Alphabet (Best First Book).
The overall winner of the Commonwealth Prize will be announced on May 18th, but whoever wins, (and despite the odd way the globe has been divided up into regions) the award has highlighted a clutch of very interesting novels.
2 comments:
Lawrence Hill's The Book of Negroes is published in the U.S. as Someone Knows My Name.
yes, that's right.
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