Thursday, May 17, 2012

Marable on James Tait Black shortlist


His Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention (Allen Lane) was published three days after his death in April 2011, and he was awarded the Pulitzer posthumously.
It joins Ian Donaldson’s Ben Jonson (OUP); The Last Pre-Raphaelite: Edward Burne-Jones and the Victorian Imagination by Fiona MacCarthy (Faber); and Nikolaus Pevsner: The Life by Susie Harries (Chatto), winner of the 2011 Wolfson History Prize, complete the list.
Man Booker-shortlisted debut Snowdrops by A D Miller (Atlantic) is one of four shortlisted in the fiction category, which also comprises Solace by Belinda McKeon (Picador); You and I by Padgett Powell (Serpents Tail); and There But For The by Ali Smith (Hamish Hamilton).
"The quality of works we considered this year was top notch, which made the shortlisting process even more difficult," said professor Jonathan Wild, deputy director of the University of Edinburgh's Centre for the History of the Book.
The awards, each worth £10,000, will be announced on 25th August as part of the Edinburgh International Book Festival. A special The Best of James Tait Black Prize will also be awarded on the night to celebrate 250 years of English Literature at the university, recognising the fiction winners from the past 93 years.
The James Tait Black Prizes are the only major British book awards judged by scholars and students of literature.


No comments: