19.15pm, London, 30 May 2012 – American author Madeline Miller has won the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction with her debut novel The Song of Achilles (Bloomsbury).
2012
marks the seventeenth year of the Orange Prize, which celebrates excellence,
originality and accessibility in women’s writing from throughout the
world.
At
an awards ceremony at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London -
hosted by Orange Prize for Fiction Co-Founder and Honorary Director, Kate Mosse
- the 2012 Chair of Judges, Joanna Trollope, presented the author with the
£30,000 prize and the ‘Bessie’, a limited edition bronze figurine. Both
are anonymously endowed.
Joanna Trollope, Chair of Judges, said:
“This is a more than worthy winner – original, passionate, inventive and
uplifting. Homer would be proud of her.”
The Orange Prize for Fiction was set up in 1996
to celebrate and promote fiction written by women throughout the world to the
widest range of readers possible. The Orange Prize is awarded to the best novel
of the year written in English by a woman.
The
judges for the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction are:
Joanna Trollope, (Chair), Writer
Lisa Appignanesi, Writer, Novelist
and Broadcaster
Victoria Derbyshire, Journalist and
Broadcaster
Natalie Haynes, Writer and
Broadcaster
Natasha Kaplinsky, Broadcaster
Stuart Jackson, Communications
Director at Orange, said: “This year’s shortlist was wonderfully varied and
international but even from such an exceptional shortlist, there can only be
one winner – many congratulations to Madeline Miller.”
Madeline
Miller
Madeline Miller was born in Boston, MA, and grew up in both New
York City and Philadelphia. She attended Brown University, where she
graduated magna cum laude with a BA and MA in Classics. She has
also studied at the Yale School of Drama specialising in adapting classical
tales to a modern audience. Since graduation she has taught Latin, Greek
and Shakespeare, both at her high school, The Shipley School in Bryn Mawr, PA,
and elsewhere. Madeline began writing fiction when she was in high school,
and has been working on The Song of Achilles, her first novel, for the
last ten years. She currently lives in New England, where she teaches
Latin and writes.
The Song of Achilles
Greece
in the age of Heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled
to Phthia to live in the shadow of King Peleus and his strong, beautiful son,
Achilles. By all rights their paths should never cross, but Achilles
takes the shamed prince as his friend, and as they grow into young men skilled
in the arts of war and medicine, their bond blossoms into something far deeper
– despite the displeasure of Achilles’s mother Thetis, a cruel sea
goddess. But then word comes that Helen of Sparta has been
kidnapped. Torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus journeys
with Achilles to Troy, little knowing that the years that follow will test
everything they hold dear.
Previous winners of the Orange Prize
are Téa Obreht for The Tiger’s Wife (2011), Barbara Kingsolver for The
Lacuna (2010), Marilynne Robinson for Home (2009), Rose
Tremain for The Road Home (2008), Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie for Half
of a Yellow Sun (2007), Zadie Smith for On Beauty
(2006), Lionel Shriver for We Need to Talk About Kevin (2005),
Andrea Levy for Small Island (2004), Valerie Martin for Property (2003),
Ann Patchett for Bel Canto (2002), Kate Grenville for The Idea of
Perfection (2001), Linda Grant for When I Lived in Modern Times
(2000), Suzanne Berne for A Crime in the Neighbourhood (1999), Carol
Shields for Larry’s Party (1998), Anne Michaels for Fugitive Pieces
(1997), and Helen Dunmore for A Spell of Winter (1996).
The
awards took place in The Clore Ballroom of the Royal Festival Hall, central
London and guests toasted the announcement of the winner at a champagne drinks
reception courtesy of Taittinger. In addition to the Orange Prize for
Fiction winner announcement, aspiring novelist Jennifer Cullen was named as the
winner of the Orange/Grazia First Chapter Competition for unpublished writers.
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