Shortlists Catchup

I'm not doing a great job of keeping up with the shortlists and longlists of recent literary prizes so here's a catch up with links so that you can go read more if so inclined.

The shortlists for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize (Britian's oldest literary award and the only one to be awarded by scholars and graduate students of literature) look like this :

Fiction :

• Our Horses in Egypt by Rosalind Belben
• The Devil's Footprints by John Burnside
• The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
• A Far Country by Daniel Mason
• Salvage by Gee Williams

Biography :

• Hand Me My Travelin' Shoes: In Search of Blind Willie McTell by Michael Gray
• God's Architect: Pugin and the Building of Romantic Britain by Rosemary Hill
• Edith Wharton by Hermione Lee
• Young Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefiore
• John Stuart Mill: Victorian Firebrand by Richard Reeves

The winner will be announced in August, and you can find out more on the Guardian website.

On the other side of the globe, the shortlist for the Miles Franklin, Australia's most prestigious literary award :

• The Fern Tattoo David Brooks
• The Time We Have Taken Steven Carroll
• Love without Hope Rodney Hall
• Sorry Gail Jones
• Landscape of Farewell Alex Miller

As The Age points out, there's a great deal of familiarity about the names on the list (authors pictured below) - Brooks is the only first time contender, while Carroll hopes that it will be third time lucky for him!

The winner will be announced on the 19th June.