The shortlist was announced in London a few minutes ago for the 2010 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, which celebrates the best work of literature (fiction, non-fiction, poetry or drama) by a UK or Commonwealth writer aged 35 or under. This year’s shortlist spotlights six remarkably varied voices, comprising two works of non-fiction, a poetry collection and three novels.
The shortlist is:
Black Mamba Boy by Nadifa Mohamed (HarperCollins)
Bomber County by Daniel Swift (Hamish Hamilton)
Corrag by Susan Fletcher (Fourth Estate)
Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine (Icon Books)
The Still Point by Amy Sackville (Portobello Books)
Daniel Swift’s Bomber County is an account of the author’s research into the life of his grandfather – an RAF pilot shot down during the Second World War. It is also an examination of the links between that campaign of destruction and the poetry that it inspired. Nadifa Mohamed’s Black Mamba Boy was longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction earlier this year. It too has the Second World War as its backdrop, telling the story of one boy’s journey from his home town across Africa and beyond in search of his father. In Amy Sackville’s debut novel, The Still Point (also longlisted for the Orange Prize) a doomed arctic expedition set at the turn of the twentieth century intertwines with the unwinding of a relationship set a hundred years later.
Kei Miller’s new collection of poetry, A Light Song of Light, grapples with the recent economic recession, family tragedy and how to continue making art in dark times. Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine is a vehement rebuttal of the use of pseudo-science to reinforce the sexual divide. Susan Fletcher’s novel Corrag is the story of a devastating historic event – the Massacre of Glencoe – featuring an extraordinary central character.
No comments:
Post a Comment