Orange Prize 2011

[Eric]

You know my views on this prize, but the writers are no doubt OK in their own right. This is the shortlist that was announced on 12th April:

• Emma Donoghue (Irish) - Room; Picador; 7th Novel
• Aminatta Forna (British/Sierra Leonean) - The Memory of Love; Bloomsbury; 2nd Novel
• Emma Henderson (British) - Grace Williams Says it Loud; Sceptre; 1st Novel
• Nicole Krauss (American) - Great House; Viking; 3rd Novel
• Téa Obreht (Serbian/American) - The Tiger’s Wife; Weidenfeld & Nicolson; 1st Novel
• Kathleen Winter (Canadian) - Annabel; Jonathan Cape; 1st Novel

The award ceremony is coming up fairly soon: 8th June.

How many of the shortlist have people here read?

[hdw]

You know my views on this prize, but the writers are no doubt OK in their own right. This is the shortlist that was announced on 12th April:

• Emma Donoghue (Irish) - Room; Picador; 7th Novel
• Aminatta Forna (British/Sierra Leonean) - The Memory of Love; Bloomsbury; 2nd Novel
• Emma Henderson (British) - Grace Williams Says it Loud; Sceptre; 1st Novel
• Nicole Krauss (American) - Great House; Viking; 3rd Novel
• Téa Obreht (Serbian/American) - The Tiger’s Wife; Weidenfeld & Nicolson; 1st Novel
• Kathleen Winter (Canadian) - Annabel; Jonathan Cape; 1st Novel

The award ceremony is coming up fairly soon: 8th June.

How many of the shortlist have people here read?

Forna has just won the Commonwealth Writers' prize. Sierra Leone and Scotland can fight over who "owns" her.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/aminatta-fo...155914334.html

Harry

[Stiffelio]

Forna has just won the Commonwealth Writers' prize. Sierra Leone and Scotland can fight over who "owns" her.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/aminatta-fo...155914334.html

Harry

Miss Donoghue was also in the Commonwealth shortlist......qualifying as a Canadian. She's actually been short- or long-listed for every possible (men-also-eligible) literary prize this season but has won none; maybe she's luckier against ladies only :-)

[Mirabell]

I keep hearing great things about Téa Obreht. Very interested in reading that novel.

[Daniel del Real]

I have Forna's first novel waiting to be read. The title is Ancestor Stones and she was in my town presenting the novel about a year and a half ago. I liked her presentation as she spoke many things she and her father lived back in Sierra Leone. In her first book, a memoir, she tells how her father was killed by the Guerrilla in Sierra Leone. She must be an interesting novelist and I hope to read that novel soon. Don't know anything about the new one.

[miobrien]

I have Nicole Krauss' Great House. It's OK. She can turn beautiful phrases every now and then, but I think she's a mediocre writer overall. Same goes with her husband, Foer.

I keep hearing great things about Téa Obreht. Very interested in reading that novel.

Same here. I have a copy of it on my Kindle but haven't gotten to it yet. Looks interesting but I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't meet the hype. She's like 25 years old -- I'm not expecting a masterpiece from her yet.

[miercuri]

I keep hearing great things about Téa Obreht. Very interested in reading that novel.

Same here. I have a copy of it on my Kindle but haven't gotten to it yet. Looks interesting but I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't meet the hype. She's like 25 years old -- I'm not expecting a masterpiece from her yet.

Looks like she won.

Téa Obreht is an exuberant Orange prize winner
The Tiger's Wife weaves together a set of picaresque wartime fables in a dazzling first novel
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011...e-prize-winner

[hdw]

Interesting article here about Obreht. I knew she was brought up in Belgrade, and thought she had a very un-Serbian name, but she's the product of a marriage between a Slovenian Catholic and a Bosnian Muslim. Before the civil war, such marriages across the ethnic/cultural divide were not uncommon.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011...e-orange-prize

Harry