Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize goes to an American author for the first time

New Yorker Gary Shteyngart has today, Tuesday 24 May 2011, been named winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction 2011 for his novel Super Sad True Love Story (Granta). One of the New Yorker’s ‘20 under 40’, Shteyngart is the first American to win this very English prize, which celebrates fiction that has captured the comic spirit of P.G. Wodehouse. He joins an illustrious group of previous winners including Man Booker Prize winners Ian McEwan and Howard Jacobson and comic greats Marina Lewycka and Jasper Fforde.  

P.G. Wodehouse may have a reputation as a quintessentially English author, but he had a close connection with America throughout his life. He spent many years in the US, becoming an American citizen in 1955, and several of the books in his Jeeves and Wooster series, amongst other stories, are set across the pond.

Shteyngart’s third novel is a dystopian tale set in a near-future, functionally illiterate America on the brink of collapse. The book follows the plight of Lenny Abramov, who vows to convince his fickle new love that, in a time without standards or stability, there is still value in being a real human being. David Mitchell described the book as ‘an intoxicating brew of keen-edged satire, social prophecy, linguistic exuberance and emotional wallop’.

Peter Florence, judge and director of the Hay Festival, comments on the winner: “Gary Shteyngart's writing is thrilling.  He's a staggeringly clever satirist who manages to create worlds and people of perfect coherence and outrageous misfortune.  This is great literature and it's wild comedy.”

The winner is announced just ahead of a winner event at this year’s Hay Festival. At the event on Saturday 4 June, Shteyngart will speak about his winning book with Gaby Wood, Head of Books, at the Daily Telegraph and will receive his prize: a jeroboam of Bollinger Special Cuvée, a case of Bollinger La Grande Année and a set of the Everyman Wodehouse collection.

In true Wodehousian tradition, Shteyngart (pic left) will also be presented with a locally-bred Gloucestershire Old Spot pig, which will been named ‘Super Sad True Love Story’ after the winning novel. It will join a long line pigs christened with rather bizarre names, including Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, and All Fun and Games until Somebody Loses an Eye.

The judges for the 2011 prize were broadcaster and author, James Naughtie; Everyman publisher, David Campbell; and Director of the Hay Festival, Peter Florence.