Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Awards: Sharma Wins Folio; Booker International Shortlist; and More

Publishers Lunch


Akhil Sharma has won the Folio Prize for his novel FAMILY LIFE (Norton). In announcing the $60,000 prize, chair of the judging committee William Fiennes commented: "From a shortlist of which we are enormously proud, Akhil Sharma's lucid, compassionate, quietly funny account of one family’s life across continents and cultures, emerged as our winner. 'Family Life' is a masterful novel of distilled complexity: about catastrophe and survival; attachment and independence; the tension between selfishness and responsibility. We loved its deceptive simplicity and rare warmth. More than a decade in the writing, this is a work of art that expands with each re-reading and a novel that will endure."

The Booker International Prize announced a shortlist of ten authors, with the winner to be named on May 19:

César Aira (Argentina)
Hoda Barakat (Lebanon)
Maryse Condé (Guadeloupe)
Mia Couto (Mozambique)
Amitav Ghosh (India)
Fanny Howe (US)
Ibrahim Al-Koni (Libya)
László Krasznahorkai (Hungary)
Alain Mabanckou (Democratic Republic of the Congo)
Marlene van Niekerk (South Africa)

Alexander Watson won the Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize in Military History for Ring of Steel: Germany and Austria-Hungary in World War I (Basic Books). Watson was presented with the prize last night at a ceremony at the New-York Historical Society.

Winners of the Books for a Better Life Awards, sponsored by the New York City-Southern New York Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society were also announced Monday night at an awards ceremony in New York:

Childcare: The Price of Silence by Liza Long (Hudson Street Press)
Cookbook: Ikaria by Diane Kochilas (Rodale)
First Book: Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson (Spiegel & Grau)
Green: The Soil Will Save Us by Kristin Ohlson (Rodale)
Inspirational Memoir: Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast (Bloomsbury)
Motivational: Thanks for the Feedback by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen (Viking)
Psychology: The Marshmallow Test: Mastering Self-Control by Walter Mischel (Little, Brown)
Relationships: Beyond Addiction by Jeffrey Foote, Carrie Wilkens and Nicole Kosanke (Scribner)
Spiritual: Bulletproof Spirit by Captain Dan Willis (New World Library)
Wellness: Being Mortal by Atul Gawande (Metropolitan)

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