This just in…
The Orange Prize for Fiction, the UK’s only annual book award for fiction written by a woman, today announces the 2009 longlist. Now in its fourteenth year, the Prize celebrates excellence, originality and accessibility in women’s writing from throughout the world.[Orange Prize]
On the long list are a few South Asian authors, including our very own own Mutineer V.V. Ganeshananthan for her book Love Marriage. Congratulations!
Yalini (the narrator and the end product of many marriages) and her generation are the children of their parents. But they live in other countries where the old rules of marriage – Love Marriage, Arranged Marriage and everything in between – do not apply. And parents who left Sri Lanka to escape the ethnic violence and to give their children opportunity, look on helplessly as those children embrace the one opportunity they didn’t intend them to take: Western Marriage.[OrangePrize]
Intrigued? Read her Sepia Mutiny interview with Sandhya here.
Other South Asian notable mentions include Preeta Samarasan and Kamila Shamsie. More after the jump…
Preeta Samarasan for Evening is The Whole Day
As the story of the Rajesekharan family unfolds, we learn what has happened to their hopes and dreams. What brought them to the Big House in troubled, post-colonial Malaysia? What was Chellam’s unforgivable crime? What is Appa – the respectable family patriarch – hiding from his wife and children? [OrangePrize]
Our own Sandhya blogged a book review for this at Literary Safari.
Kamila Shamsie for Burnt Shadows
[I]n search of new beginnings, Hiroko travels to Delhi…As the years unravel, new homes replace those left behind and old wars are seamlessly usurped by new conflicts. But the shadows of history – personal and political – are cast over the entwined worlds of the Burtons, Ashrafs and the Tanakas as they are transported from Pakistan to New York, and, ultimately, to Afghanistan in the immediate wake of 9/11. [OrangePrize]
The full list of nominees are available at the website here. Notable desi past mentions includes Roopa Farooqi, short listed for this award for her book Bitter Sweets in 2007.
Any woman writing in English, whatever her nationality, country of residence, age or subject matter, is eligible. The winner will receive a cheque for £30,000 and a limited edition bronze known as a ‘Bessie’, created and donated by the artist Grizel Niven. Both are anonymously endowed.The winner will be announced at an awards ceremony to be held in The Ballroom at the Royal Festival Hall on 3 June.[OrangePrize]
Congratulations to all the women who are on this list. We’ll be holding our breathes for the result on June 3rd!
