Thursday, January 28, 2010

Le Prince Maurice Prize 2010 Longlist Announced

www.leprincemaurice.com

The longlist for Le Prince Maurice Prize for literary love stories 2010 is announced today, 28 January, 2010.

Now in its eighth year, this unique Prize aims to discover love stories of the highest literary quality that engage the heart as well as the head. The prize is awarded to an English-speaking writer every second year (alternating with a French-speaking winner), and the novels submitted cover love in one of its myriad forms. The authors must do more than just impress the judges with the quality of their writing – they must also have the capacity to move them.

The longlist of nine books is as follows:

The Very Thought of You Rosie Alison Alma Books

Small Wars Sadie Jones Chatto & Windus

Girl in a Blue Dress Gaynor Arnold Tindal Street Press

The Madonna of the Almonds Marina Fiorato Beautiful Books
The Enemy of the Good Michael Arditti Arcadia Books

East of the Sun Julia Gregson Orion Books

Jeff in Venice, Death in Geoff Dyer Canongate
Varanasi
West Coast Kate Muir Headline

Whatever Makes you Happy William Sutcliffe Bloomsbury

The President of the Prize, author and journalist Tim Lott, comments:
‘The longlist for the 2010 Prince Maurice Prize has produced a field of outsiders, with unknown quantities such as Marina Fiorato, Julia Gregson, Rosie Alison and Gaynor Arnold all gaining places. The most prominent names on the longlist are Sadie Jones (Small Wars), Kate Muir (West Coast) and William Sutcliffe (Whatever Makes You Happy). Le Prince Maurice’s most successful publishers, Canongate, who have had three of their books shortlisted in the past three prizes, two of which turned out to be eventual winners, have a single chance to claim a fourth Le Prince Maurice prize with Geoff Dyer’s novel Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi.

The judges are:

Esther Freud, Esther trained as an actress before writing her first novel Hideous Kinky, published in 1991. She has since written six more novels, including The Sea House and Love Falls.

Mike Gayle, Mike is the author of eight bestselling works of fiction and one work of non-fiction entitled The To Do List. His latest novel, The Importance of Being a Bachelor is out May 2010.

Nigel Williams, Nigel has written twelve novels - the most well known of which is The Wimbledon Poisoner. He is also a playwright, and his stage play Class Enemy is still being performed all over the world.

Also on the panel are the three regular Mauritian judges - authors Carl de Souza, Alain Gordon-Gentil and Kumari Issur, and the President, Tim Lott.

Le Prince Maurice is one of the world’s most elegant five-star resorts. The prize honours the dual Franco-British cultural history of Mauritius.

The shortlist will be announced in March 2010, and the judges will announce the winner of Le Prince Maurice Prize at an awards ceremony at Le Prince Maurice on 5 June, 2010. The winner will receive a trophy and an all expenses paid two-week ‘writer’s retreat’ at Le Prince Maurice.

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