NEW ZEALAND AUTHOR LLOYD JONES WINS THE COMMONWEALTH WRITERS PRIZE

This from the Sydney Morning Herald.

And the New Zealand front page report...........

Pic from Jamaica Gleaner shows Lloyd on far left with other finalists.

I had the great privilege and wonderful experience of being involved for three years in the judging of the Commonwealth Writers Prize firstly at the Regional level and then on to the International level.

It is a very difficult prize for NZ writers to win as first off they have to beat off all the best Australian fiction writers, (and there are many of them – think Tim Winton, Peter Carey, Murray Bail, Shirley Hazzard, Elizabeth Jolly, Frank Moorhouse, Rodney Hall, David Malouf and loads more), - it is a tall order believe me - as well as their own contemporaries on the NZ scene.

Having won the regional prize, and very few kiwis have done so, it has always been totally dominated by the Aussies ( a bit like cricket and swimming!), and then of course you have to go on to beat all other writers writing in English which is pretty much those from everywhere except the US.

So this is an enormous achievement for Lloyd and beattiesbookblog offers its warmest congratulations. Sensational Lloyd, well done mate.

Footnote - Only two other New Zealand authors have ever won prizes in these Awards which were established in 1987:

Janet Frame won Best Book Award in 1989 for The Carpathians and

John Cranna won the Best First Book Award in 1990 for Visitors.

For a full list of winners for past year and more details on the Commonwealth Writers Prize go to the Wikipedia website.