Saturday, June 12, 2010

The Orange adds zest to Barbara Kingsolver's sales
The American author has good reason to be pleased about the prize for The Lacuna


    * Vanessa Thorpe
    * guardian.co.uk, Thursday 10 June 2010




Barbara Kingsolver receives the Orange prize for fiction from the Duchess of Cornwall. Photograph: Alastair Grant/AP

The impact of winning the annual Orange prize on Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna is being felt in the industry already. The book was chosen last night above the favourite Wolf Hall, the historical saga by British author Hilary Mantel.

Kingsolver's victory seems to have been the result of battles among the judging panel, which is partly just as you would hope in such a competition, and the chair of judges, Daisy Goodwin, put its eventual selectiondown to the driving sense of passion behind the book.

The winning American author, who already has bestseller The Poisonwood Bible to her name, has reason to be very pleased about her new award for women's writing and by its demonstrable clout. Sales of The Laarcuna are up massively overnight, says Amazon, with an increase of 835% after the announcement. This morning The Lacuna was at number 10 in the site's chart.

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