Saturday, November 08, 2014

Joshua Ferris novel wins International Dylan Thomas prize - fights off competition from prize-winning books by Eleanor Catton and Eimear McBride

To Rise Again at a Decent Hour fights off competition from prize-winning books by Eleanor Catton and Eimear McBride



US author Joshua Ferris won the Dylan Thomas prize with his book To Rise Again at a Decent Hour
US author Joshua Ferris won the International Dylan Thomas prize with his book To Rise Again at a Decent Hour. Photograph: Elisabetta A Villa/Getty Images
The American author Joshua Ferris has won the International Dylan Thomas prize for his darkly comic novel about a New York dentist grappling with an existential crisis.
In celebration of the legacy of the Welsh poet and writer, the annual award is given to the “best literary work in the English language, written by an author aged 39 or under” – marking the age Thomas was when he died. In previous years, the award, worth £30,000 to the winner, was given to the best writer under 30.

To Rise Again at a Decent Hour, which was also shortlisted for this year’s Man Booker prize, fought off tough competition from last year’s Man Booker winner, 28-year-old Eleanor Catton’s novel The Luminaries, and Irish writer Eimear McBride’s book A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing, which has already won the Bailey’s prize for women’s fiction.

The book, Ferris’s third, was praised by the judges as a “novel which encapsulates the frustration, energy and humour that goes into the making of New York”.
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