News Blog @ Wellington City Libraries

The shortlist for the Orange Prize 2010 has recently been announced.  From a long list of twenty titles that included Eleanor Catton’s The Rehearsal and The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters, six novels were selected. Two are by English writers, The Very Thought of You a debut novel by Rosie Alison, and Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. The White Woman on the Green Bicycle is by Monique Roffey, who was born in Trinidad, but now lives in the United Kingdom.

The other three novels selected are all by American writers, The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver, Black Water Rising a debut novel by Attica Locke and A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore. The winner will be announced on 9^th June, 2010. More details on this year’s prize, previous prize winners and nominated writers, author biographies and novel synopsis can be found at orangeprize.co.uk

Sources: The Independent, London Evening Standard.

Albert Wendt, with his novel The Adventures of Vela, has won the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize for the Asia Pacific Region. Published by Huia Publishers the novel now goes to the final phase of judging to decide the overall Best Book and Best First Novel from all Commonwealth regions that include Africa, Caribbean, Canada, South Asia and Europe. The Winner will be announced in Delhi on 12 April 2010.

Albert Wendt has written numerous novels, volumes of poetry, edited many anthologies of South Pacific writing, and his first full length play met with much acclaim. Two of his novels have been made into feature films. These were Sons for the Return Home and Flying Fox in a Freedom Tree. At present he is Emeritus Professor at the University of Auckland.

Sources: Booksellers Association, Huia Publishers.

The Rehearsal by New Zealand writer Eleanor Catton has been selected for the Orange Prize for Fiction long list along with nineteen other novels chosen from 129 nominations. The long list  includes some well known writers, such as Hilary Mantel with Wolf Hall, last year’s Man Booker Prize winning novel, Andrea Levy, who is a past Orange Prize winner, with The Long Song, and Sarah Walters with The Little Stranger, who was a guest speaker during the recent Writers and Readers week . There are 7 debut novels on the long list, including The Rehearsal. The short list will be announced on 20^th April and the winner, who will receive £30,000, on 9^th June 2010.

The complete Orange Prize long list can be found on the Guardian UK website

Sources: Guardian UK, Independent UK

Today, in the first of the major entertainment award ceremonies of 2010, the ever popular Mad Men won best drama TV series and the 2009 hit, Glee, won best comedy series.  James Cameron’s Avatar - partially made in Wellington – and The Hangover were the winners in the Best Film categories, with Cameron winning best director.

In the TV series (Drama) category,  Dexter wasn’t entirely shut out of the awards with Michael C Hall and John Lithgow (series 4 villain) winning best actor and best supporting actor respectively. Meanwhile, The Good Wife’s Juliana Marguiles won the best actress (drama) category and Big Love’s  Chloe Sevigny was thrilled to win best supporting actress – though annoyed that her dress had been stood on by the stage chaperone.

Comedy series favourite 30Rock won best supporting actor for Alec Baldwin who sadly couldn’t attend – meanwhile his colleague Tina Fey lost out to Toni Collette who won best actress for The United States of Tara.

Rounding out the main award winners, with an amazing retrospective of his work, was  Martin Scorsese – winner of the Cecil B. De Mille award.

Keen for more details?  Full details of the winners can be found on the Entertainment Weekly website.

Hilary Mantel has been awarded the 2009 Mann Booker Prize for her novel Wolf Hall. A historical novel recounted through the eyes of Thomas Cromwell, who started out as a Blacksmith’s boy and eventually became one of the most powerful men in England beside Henry VIII. Wolf Hall has been the most popular novel ever to win the Mann Booker Prize. Hilary Mantel has written nine other novels, two have been historical, with A Greater Place of Safety published in 1992 and set in France at the time of the French revolution, winning the Sunday Express Book of the year. Beyond Black published in 2005 was shortlisted for the 2006 Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Orange Prize for Fiction the same year.

The shortlist for this year’s Man Booker Prize has been announced with six finalists chosen from 13 on the long list and which in turn was chosen from the 132 titles submitted.

The shortlist includes a semi autobiographical novel titled Summer Time, by the 2003 Noble Prize for Literature winner J.M. Coetzee. He previously won the Booker Prize in 1983 for The Life and Times of Michael K, and in 1999 for Disgrace. A. S. Byatt with her novel The Children’s Book is also a finalist and a past winner of this prize in 1990 for Possession: a romance.

The most popular book on the shortlist is Hilary Mantel’s historical novel Wolf Hall. Other finalists are Adam Foulds with The Quickening Maze, Sarah Waters with The Little Stranger and Simon Mawer with The Glass Room. The winner will be announced on 6^th October 2009.

The 2009 Man Booker Prize long-list has recently been announced. From 135 submitted novels, the panel of five judges have chosen thirteen. Of these, four are past-shortlisted writers, these include Colm Toibin for Brooklyn, William Trevor for Love and Summer, Sarah Waters for The Little Stranger, and Hilary Mantel for Wolf Hall. Also included were two writers who have previously won this award, A. S. Byatt for The Children’s Book and past double winner J. M. Coetzee for Summertime. The short-list will be announced on 8 September 2009, with the winner on 6 October 2009.

Wellington City Libraries congratulates all the 2009 Montana New Zealand Prize winners, especially Emily Perkins winner of the Montana Medal for Fiction for her novel titled, Novel About My Wife.  Also Wellington writers Jill Trevelyan, winner of the top non-fiction prize for her biography, Rita Angus: An Artist’s Life , Kate De Goldi with the readers’ choice prize for The 10 PM Question, and Jenny Bornholdt, for winning the poetry prize for her collection, The Rocky Shore.  More information, past and present, on the New Zealand Montana Book Awards can be found on the New Zealand Book Council website.

The winner of the 2009 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, one of the literary world’s richest, was recently announced. This year’s award was won by Michael Thomas for his first novel Man Goes Down. Brilliant in its scope and energy, deeply moving and insightful this novel tell the story of a young black father of three in a biracial marriage trying to claim a piece of the American Dream he has hoped for since his youth.

Michael Thomas was born and raised in Boston, where his novel is set. He recieved his B. A. from Hunter College and his M.F.A. from Warren Wilson College. He teaches at Hunter and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Well known, and much acclaimed New Zealand writer Emily Perkins has won the fifth annual Believer Book Award for 2009 with Novel about my wife. The Believer Book Award winner is chosen by readers of The Believer magazine, from a short list of novels selected by the editors as representing the strongest works of fiction published in each year. Novel about my wife, although set in London, was completed in New Zealand when she moved from London to Auckland with her family. It can be described as a psychological thriller, ghost story or domestic drama and is her third novel, the others being, Leave before you go, published 1998 and New girl published in 2001.