Warwick Prize for Writing announces its 2011 Shortlist

Shortlist sees novelists, ananthropologist and poet compete for top prize 
The judges for the 2011 Warwick Prize for Writing today announce a shortlist of six for the coveted £50,000 prize. Launched in 2009, this biennial prize run by the University of Warwick stands out as an international cross-disciplinary award open to substantial pieces of writing in the English language, in any genre or form.

Interpreting this year’s theme of ‘colour’, the six shortlisted titles include an ‘unvarnished truth’ about apartheid South Africa; a tale about the aftermath of civil war in Sierra Leone; a lyrically written novel about contemporary Afghanistan; poems recalling the Caribbean’s complex colonial legacy; an anthropologist’s analysis on the mysteries of colour; and the fascinating story of mimicry and camouflage in science, art and the natural world.

The six shortlisted titles are:

The Wasted Vigil Nadeem Aslam Faber & Faber Fiction

Dazzled and Deceived: Mimicry and Camouflage Peter Forbes Yale University Press Non-fiction

The Memory of Love Aminatta Forna Bloomsbury Fiction

The Literature Police: Apartheid Censorship and its Cultural Consequences Peter D McDonald Oxford University Press Non-fiction

What Color is the Sacred? Michael Taussig Chicago Non-fiction

White Egrets Derek Walcott Faber & Faber Poetry

The judging panel for the prize is chaired by Michael Rosen, broadcaster, children's novelist, poet and the author of 140 books. He is joined on the panel by The Times Literary Editor Erica Wagner; crossbench peer Lola Young; author and editorial director of Chatto & Windus Jenny Uglow and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Warwick Professor Nigel Thrift.

Michael Rosen comments: "We have chosen six excellent books across poetry, anthropology, science and fiction. Each in their own way, the books explore colour either on its own terms or as a prism through which the writing emerges. I’m looking forward to some tough arguing over choosing the winner.”

To find out more visit www.warwick.ac.uk/go/prizeforwriting

• The £50,000 Warwick Prize is entirely self-funded by the University of Warwick. The University is able to make such an investment as it generates 77% of its own income


• In addition to the £50,000 monetary prize, the winning author will be awarded the opportunity to take up a short placement at the University of Warwick

• The Warwick Prize for Writing is an innovative literature prize that involves global competition, and crosses all disciplines. The Prize will be given biennially for an excellent and substantial piece of writing in the English language, in any genre or form, on a theme which will change with every award

• The winner will be announced in London on 22 March 2011.

• Submissions may be translations of a work first published in another language. If so, the submission must be the first English translation and must have appeared for the first time within the stated prize period. The prize for such a work will be divided between the original author and the translator in the ratio 70:30