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Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Best of best books award announced

Britain's oldest literary prize is to make a special award later this year for its best-ever winner.

For 93 years the James Tate Black awards have been given to the best work of fiction and the best biography.

Organisers are now planning to make a special award for the "Best of the James Tait Black" in fiction.

A shortlist of authors will be announced in the autumn.

The awards were founded in 1919 by Janet Coats, the widow of publisher James Tait Black, and the prizes commemorate her husband's love of good books.

Past winners of the fiction prize include Salman Rushdie, Zadie Smith and Ian McEwan and literary giants such as D.H. Lawrence, E.M. Forster and Graham Greene.

The winners are presented with their £10,000 prize, which is awarded by Edinburgh University, at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

The reason for this best-of-best award, apparently, is to commemorate the university's 250th English Literature anniversary.

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