Two items of news that particularly caught my eye from the 115th in a series of occasional newsletters from the Victoria University centre of the International Institute of Modern Letters.

For more information about these items, email modernletters@vuw.ac.nz .

You will be able to read the newsletter online at: http://www.vuw.ac.nz/modernletters/activities/newsletter.aspx

after Monday 8 October 2007.

Major international prize for literature won by New Zealander

All eyes may be on Lloyd Jones and the Man Booker Prize at present, but another New Zealand writer has just quietly picked up a major international award that is equally significant, if not quite as energetically promoted.

Novelist Patricia Grace was selected as the 2008 laureate of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, announced at a ceremony at the University of Oklahoma in the United States late last week. The Neustadt Prize is awarded every two years and is regarded as one of the most prestigious international prizes after the Nobel Prize in Literature. The only other New Zealander ever to be nominated is Janet Frame, and Patricia Grace is only the fourth woman to win. An international jury representing ten countries selected Grace as the winner of the US$50,000 prize, which is administered by the University of Oklahoma and its international magazine, World Literature Today. She was nominated by the US poet and musician Joy Harjo.

Craig Cliff wins with Another Language

Our congratulations to 2006 MA (Page) graduate Craig Cliff, who is winner of the novice (previously unpublished) writer category in the 2007 BNZ Katherine Mansfield Short Story Awards announced in Wellington last night. We hope this may represent the beginning of a tradition, as Craig’s fellow workshop member Emma Gallagher took the award in 2006. Craig Cliff is currently travelling in Europe: his winning story is aptly titled ‘Another Language’.