From Bangladesh to Baghdad: The Guardian First Book Award
A US soldier jumps into Saddam Hussein's swimming pool. Rajiv Chandrasekaran's Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone is one of the titles shortlisted for this year's Guardian First Book Award.
Photograph: Getty Images
Fiction and non-fiction lock horns on this year's Guardian First Book Award shortlist, whose subjects range from a dexterous imagining of the birth of modern-day Bangladesh to an account of the craziness and corruption of life in the fortified Green Zone in post-occupation Iraq.
While the titles shortlisted for the £10,000 prize - three novels, a biography and a work of non-fiction - differ substantially in setting, they are united by a shared seriousness and ambition.
Tahmima Anam's novel on 1970s Bangladesh, A Golden Age, and Rajiv Chandrasekaran's
Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone are joined on
the shortlist by Catherine O'Flynn's What Was Lost, which is part mystery,
part dissection of modern consumer society, Dinaw Mengestu's depiction of an
Ethiopian immigrant's quest for a fully-realised life in America, Children
of the Revolution, and Rosemary Hill's biography of the architect and
originator of the Gothic revival, Augustus Pugin.
While the titles shortlisted for the £10,000 prize - three novels, a biography and a work of non-fiction - differ substantially in setting, they are united by a shared seriousness and ambition.
Tahmima Anam's novel on 1970s Bangladesh, A Golden Age, and Rajiv Chandrasekaran's
Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone are joined on
the shortlist by Catherine O'Flynn's What Was Lost, which is part mystery,
part dissection of modern consumer society, Dinaw Mengestu's depiction of an
Ethiopian immigrant's quest for a fully-realised life in America, Children
of the Revolution, and Rosemary Hill's biography of the architect and
originator of the Gothic revival, Augustus Pugin.
The Guardian First Book Award is unique among book prizes as it is open to all first-time authors and because of the input of readers' groups. The groups are based in seven
Waterstone's stores across the country and their views are given voice in
discussions on the seven-strong panel of judges by Waterstone's Stuart Broom.
Waterstone's stores across the country and their views are given voice in
discussions on the seven-strong panel of judges by Waterstone's Stuart Broom.
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