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Monday, August 18, 2008

2009 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award

Random House New Zealand has proudly announced that five of their books are included in the nominations for the 2009 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

These are:
Drybread by Owen Marshall
Rocking Horse Road, by Carl Nixon
Lucky Bastard, by Peter Wells
Towards Another Summer, by Janet Frame
Mr. Allbone's Ferrets, by Fiona Farrell

This annual award is presented to a novel which, in the opinion of the judges, makes a lasting contribution to excellence in world literature, so it is a real scoop to be shortlisted. The nominations were submitted by libraries in major cities world wide.

I have yet to learn if other New Zealand publishers have books on the shortlist, as I can't find the shortlist on the internet! And I am ashamed to say that the only one of the five I have read is Mr Allbone's Ferrets by Fiona Farrell, which I loved for its superb research and "feel" of the English countryside. In fact, I wrote to Fiona, asking her to write a sequel, but she prevaricated.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The list of Random NZ books on the long list for the IMPAC prize is interesting reading. It's fantastic to see those names. These are some of the books spoken of by this year's Montana judges in that bizarre and insulting way - 'diluting the sticker.' It reinforces comments that the judges had a somewhat limited view of fiction, and of long narrative in particular.

Two points I noted this week, at the LIANZA awards this Monday:

1 - one of the LIANZA judges said something along the lines of 'we didn't have the problem the Montana judges did, of having difficulty finding enough good books to fill our short list.' This is actually a misinterpretation of what the Montana judges said, but it's a common misinterpretation that doesn't do anyone any good - not even the chosen 4, because they might believe it. Thus, you could say that the Montana trio did a lasting disservice to all the writers who had books of fiction published last year (except the chosen 4) by those ill-judged statements.

2: the book of fiction that won the Esther Glen Award was not even on the short list for the NZ Post Children's and Young Adults Awards. Proof, if any more was needed, that we need another set of book awards for the 'grown up' market to provide some necessary balance.