Tag Archives: Awards

The Green Carnation Book Prize

February 20, 1892, was the premiere for Oscar Wilde’s comedic play Lady Windermere’s FanIt’s a glorious, smart, subversive play that deals with gender assumption, class issues, love, trust, loyalty, and you should read it.  Or see it.  Or hear a recording of it (I really love this play, if you can’t tell…).

The play was an enormous success, but Oscar’s speech at the end (he was brought out on stage to be applauded, as well) may have actually been the most memorable part of the evening.  You can see a reproduction of it here, with Stephen Fry playing Oscar:

Anyways, for the premiere, Oscar arranged for one of the actors to wear a green carnation in his buttonhole.  He also gave carnations to his friends who would be attending, so that it would appear that a select number of audience members were in cahoots with the actors over the style.   Artist Graham Robertson was one of the people Wilde asked to wear the flower.  As the story goes, Robertson asked Wilde what the green carnation was supposed to mean.

“Nothing whatever,” Wilde replied, “but that is just what nobody will guess.”

The story is a good one, and definitely fits with Oscar’s love of gently mocking society at large for being ridiculous, but the truth was that there was a lot of meaning behind the green carnation.  Green was the symbol of Irish nationalism, and Oscar, an Irishman himself and a firm believer in the cause of Irish nationalism.  It was also the color of absinthe, a hallucinogenic drink that of which Oscar was particularly fond (you can still get it now, but it’s not a hallucinogen anymore…).  Finally, to Oscar, green was the color of artists–a green carnation is not natural.  You can’t grow them naturally.  They have to be created, with intention, and purpose.

Oscar Wilde was also a homosexual, and today, there are a lot of assumptions that the green carnation was a covert symbol of homosexuality.  It wasn’t–or, at least, it never seems to have been used as a symbol by Oscar himself to denote homosexuality (it was never referenced at his trials, and he himself never wrote a word about it, though he wrote about his carnations and the color green fairly often).  However, there were a number of people who mocked him (covertly and not-so-covertly), and stated that the green carnation was some kind of symbol of depravity.

Since that time, however, the green carnation has been adopted as a highly literary and rather esoteric reference to homosexuality, in deference to Wilde who, in many ways, defined what a homosexual man should look, act, and sound like.

Fast-forward to 2010, when author Paul Magrs, who also writes funny, charming, and very clever books, tweeted about the “scandalous lack of prizes for gay men” in the UK (<– Quoting the tweet there), and he and journalist Simon Savidge decided to set up just such a prize, they decided to name it The Green Carnation Prize. The Prize was originally awarded to the best fiction and memoirs by gay men.  In 2012 the prize opened its submission criteria to include all LGBT writers, in 2015 it widened its submission criteria even further including all ‘works of translation’.

Why is this important?  You might ask.
It’s important because human beings are herd animals.  We accept things are “right” when other people do them/think them/say them/wear them/eat them/sing them/dance with them/etc. first.  It’s why it’s so easy to do what everyone else is doing.  It’s why humans who do things alone, who are the first to say something or do something is such a momentous event.  Affirmation and validation and self-confidence are all wrapped up together in our cave-people brains.  And it’s really hard when you are a reader, to never read a book about people like you.  Whether the “people like you” have a certain skin color, speak a particularly language, practice a certain set of beliefs, looks a certain way, or loves a certain way, it’s enormously important to our self-understanding to know that there are other people “like us” somewhere in the world.

And, as tribal animals, who understand that taking care of our human tribe is as important as taking care of ourselves, we need to make sure that everyone can find a book in which they can find themselves, and feel like they belong.  It might not be a book that you yourself enjoy, or with which you identify–and that’s ok. We’ll find some.  Or we’ll write some.  Or maybe you’ll write them.  But the point is, the more we celebrate diversity in all its forms, the more diversity there will be.

So today, we bring you the Green Carnation Short List.  Where the books haven’t yet been released in the US, the WorldCat links are provided.  We can get these books for you, if you come in and ask!

The winner will be announced at Foyle’s Book Shop in London on May 22nd!

Courtesy of http://greencarnationprize.com/

 

The Man Booker International Prize Shortlist!

On Friday, the Prize Committee for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize announced their shortlist, having whittled down their long list to six shining examples of greatness in international (that is, non English-speaking) fiction, and the best in translation work.

And it’s this aspect of the award that I personally find fascinating.  There are brilliant, creative, and insightful human beings around the planet, and they create art in any number of mediums, forms, and in as many languages as have been created thus far.  But to translate their work is another art form in and of itself.

As Rick Kleffel noted in his fabulous think-piece on this topic, titled The Art of Translation, word choice is only the beginning when it comes to translation work.  It’s fairly easy, generally speaking, to  transpose a word in a foreign language to English.  But a translator also has to think about the sound of words, especially when translating lyric works like poetry.  Local and cultural connotations are significant, as well–there are any  number of regional dialects that a translator has to parse in order to provide an effective and meaningful translation; think about how we in Massachusetts understand “wicked” to mean “very”.  Now think about the actual meaning of the word “wicked” (evil or morally wrong).  These are issues that a translator must not only understand, but be able to handle.

Time periods matter, too.  Kleffel notes a particularly colorful instance related to him by Burton Raffle, a professional translator who was hired to translate a 16th century novel from Middle French into modern English:

Written in the 16th century, the novel was set in a time of filth and squalor. Raffel found he had to overcome the limits of the English language.

“Rabelais, the author of this very strange book, ends the chapter with a sputtering iteration. I believe it’s something like 43 different words in French for s- – -,” says Raffel. “My problem was finding 43 different words because English is not so plentiful in these things.

So, on that note, let’s tip our hats today, not only to these phenomenal authors, but to their incredibly talented translators, as well!

And just a reminder, the international prize comes with a cash award of £50,000, or about $64,000, which authors split with their translators.

And the nominees are…

Compass by French author Mathias Énard.  As night falls over Vienna, Franz Ritter, an insomniac musicologist, takes to his sickbed with an unspecified illness and spends a restless night drifting between dreams and memories, revisiting the important chapters of his life, as well as the various writers, artists, musicians, academics, orientalists, and explorers who populate this vast dreamscape, including the love whose loss has defined his life (translated by Charlotte Mandell).

A Horse Walks Into a Bar by Israeli author David Grossman: In a little dive in a small Israeli city, Dov Greenstein, a comedian a bit past his prime, is doing a night of stand-up.  Gradually, as it teeters between hilarity and hysteria, Dov’s patter becomes a kind of memoir, taking us back into the terrors of his childhood, from his traumatized and violent parents to his week at a military camp for youth, while his audience is forced to wrestle with their part in his increasingly harrowing tale  (translated by Jessica Cohen).

The Unseen about a family living on a small Scandinavian fishing island.  Sadly, there has been no US release announced (yet) for this book (translated by Don Bartlett and Don Shaw).

Mirror, Shoulder, Signal by Danish author Dorthe Nors.   Sonja’s over forty, and she’s trying to move in the right direction. She’s learning to drive. She’s joined a meditation group. And she’s attempting to reconnect with her sister.  But Sonja would rather eat cake than meditate.  Her driving instructor won’t let her change gear.  And her sister won’t return her calls.  Sonja’s mind keeps wandering back to the dramatic landscapes of her childhood, but can she learn to find her way in the present? (translated by Misha Hoekstra).

Judas, by Israeli author Amos Oz.  Jerusalem, 1959. Shmuel Ash, a biblical scholar, is adrift in his young life when he finds work as a caregiver for a brilliant but cantankerous old man named Gershom Wald. There is, however, a third, mysterious presence in his new home. Atalia Abarbanel, the daughter of a deceased Zionist leader, a beautiful woman in her forties, entrances young Shmuel even as she keeps him at a distance. Piece by piece, the old Jerusalem stone house, haunted by tragic history and now home to the three misfits and their intricate relationship, reveals its secrets. (translated by Nicholas de Lange).

The Pulitzer Prizes!

The Pulitzer Prize was established in 1917 by the Hungarian-born Joseph Pulitzer, who made his name and fortune as a newspaper publisher in the United States.

Pulitzer came the United States and was paid $200 to enlist  in the United States Army during the American Civil War.  Following his discharge, he made his way to Boston, intended to get work aboard the whaling ships of New Bedford.  Whaling, he found to his dismay, was quite boring, so he lived the life of a tramp for some time, sleeping on the streets and traveling in boxcars all the way to St. Louis.  In a town so full of German immigrants, Pulitzer was a welcomed guest, and soon found work in restaurants…and was fired when he dropped a tray and doused a patron in beer.

So Pulitzer did what all wise people do (ahem) and he started hanging out at the Library.  He learned English from the books on the shelf, and decided to strike out on his own, making his way to Louisiana, after some fast-talking steamboat operators convinced him, and a few other men, good-paying jobs on a Louisiana sugar plantation. They boarded a steamboat, which took them downriver 30 miles south of the city, where the crew forced them off. When the boat churned away, the men concluded the promised plantation jobs were a ruse. They walked back to the city, where Pulitzer wrote an account of the fraud and was pleased when it was accepted by the Westliche Post, evidently his first published news story.  He moved back to St. Louis (and near his beloved Library), and began buying shares in newspapers–then selling them, eventually making a profit that allowed him to buy both the St. Louis Dispatch, and the St. Louis Post, and combine them into the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which is still in operation today.

Pulitzer himself was a workhorse, putting in workdays that started at 10am and ended at 2am the next day.  And that work paid off.  Within a decade, he was buying newpapers in cities across the country, and by 1887, he was elected to the US Congress (and resigned so that he could pay attention to his papers).  It is thanks to Pulitzer, and his arch-rival, William Randolph Hearst, that we have the world of news that we do today.  The two of them, quite literally, single-handedly invented modern print journalism by selling advertising space in their papers, and, thus, monetizing the material they were putting out.  In order to ensure that papers sold, they both encouraged their reporters to sell the stories, with eye-catching headlines, passionate story-telling, investigative, hard-hitting articles…and a good helping of sensationalism mixed in to ensure that the public remained riveted.

Pulitzer left Columbia University $2,000,000 in his will upon his death in 1912…this around the time that the average annual income was $500-$700…to found a school of journalism, to ensure the news empire that he build, and the business he had helped to found would continue to thrive.  Five years later, they established the prize in his name that would reward the best that American journalism has to offer.  Since then, the award has expanded to include “Letters, Drama, and Music” as well, making it one of the most prestigious literary awards in the United States.  Prizes are awarded yearly in twenty-one categories. In twenty of the categories, each winner receives a certificate and a US$15,000 cash award (raised from $10,000 in 2017).

And today, we are thrilled to announce the winners of the 2017 Pulitzer Prizes for “Letters, Drama, and Music”, along with the description provided by the judging board in their selection.  For the full list of awards, see the Pulitzer Prize website here.

Fiction

The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead

For a smart melding of realism and allegory that combines the violence of slavery and the drama of escape in a myth that speaks to contemporary America.

Drama

Courtesy of http://sweatbroadway.com/
Sweat, by Lynn Nottage

For a nuanced yet powerful drama that reminds audiences of the stacked deck still facing workers searching for the American dream. (Currently on Broadway)

History

Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy, by Heather Ann Thompson

For a narrative history that sets high standards for scholarly judgment and tenacity of inquiry in seeking the truth about the 1971 Attica prison riots.

Biography or Autobiography

The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between, by Hisham Matar 

For a first-person elegy for home and father that examines with controlled emotion the past and present of an embattled region.

Poetry

Olio, by Tyehimba Jess 

For a distinctive work that melds performance art with the deeper art of poetry to explore collective memory and challenge contemporary notions of race and identity.

General Nonfiction

Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, by Matthew Desmond 

For a deeply researched exposé that showed how mass evictions after the 2008 economic crash were less a consequence than a cause of poverty.

Music

Courtesy of http://hyperallergic.com
Angel’s Bone, by Du Yun

Premiered on January 6, 2016, at the Prototype Festival, 3LD Arts and Technology Center, New York City, a bold operatic work that integrates vocal and instrumental elements and a wide range of styles into a harrowing allegory for human trafficking in the modern world. Libretto by Royce Vavrek. (A preview of the performance can be seen by following the title link)

The Baileys Women’s Prize For Fiction Shortlist is Here!

Yesterday, the lovely committee in charge of choosing this years’ Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction announced their short list.  These are the six books chosen out of the sixteen originally nominated, and one of them will be this years’ Baileys Women’s Prize winner June 7, 2017.

From http://www.womensprizeforfiction.co.uk/

These book represent an enormous range of settings, from 19th century Kentucky to 1980s Nigeria, and a post-WWII sanatorium, Some give voices to the politically marginalized and historically overlooked, like Thein does in her stunning Do Not Say We Having Nothing, while use their characters identities to turn the world as we know it on its ear, as Alderman does in The Power (when you have a chance to read it, you’ll understand precisely what I am saying).    They also represent a great range of experience–Stay With Me is Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀̀’s debut novel, while Linda Grant won the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2000.

“It has been a great privilege to Chair the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction in a year which has proved exceptional for writing of both quality and originality,” said Tessa Ross, 2017 Chair of Judges. “It was therefore quite a challenge to whittle this fantastic longlist of 16 books down to only six… These were the six novels that stayed with all of us well beyond the final page.”

And just a reminder, the winner of the award takes home a £30,000 prize, as well as a ‘Bessie’ – a limited edition bronze statue – created by artist Grizel Niven (an extra limited edition, as this is Baileys last year sponsoring the prize).

The shortlisted books are as follows:

Stay With Me Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀̀
The Power  Naomi Alderman (Will be released October 10)
The Dark Circle by Linda Grant (Will be released June 29)
The Sport of Kings by C.E. Morgan
First Love by Gwendoline Riley
Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien

I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to get started on each of these nominated novels–and you can be sure we’ll be announcing the winner after the announcement on June 7, dear readers!

The Man Booker International Prize Longlist is here!

We are getting extraordinarily spoiled for book awards around here lately, dear readers!  Today, we present the Man Booker International Prize Longlist, celebrating the best books not originally written in English, and the people who translate them so beautifully.

Every culture, and every language, has its own literary traditions.   The English language tradition has Shakespeare, Milton, Dickens, Austen–all the names that we learned about in school, and whose skill shaped, and continue to shape, the books we read today.

But now, imagine growing up in a world where those authors….weren’t the ones you grew up reading.  A world where you had other authors–other traditions–other phrases that called up your emotions.

It’s really hard to do.  But that is what makes books not written in English so incredible.  They are based in different cultures, different linguistic structures, different overall world experiences.  And I don’t know if there is a more intimate way to experience a different culture than to read its literature.

Better yet, the Man Booker Prize celebrates translations, as well.  If writing a book is a difficult process, translating that book is another matter entirely.  The ability to interpret not only an author’s words, but his or her intentions is a rare one.  To be able to keep one foot in the original language and one in the new is a balancing act that few can pull off with grace.  Vladimir Nabokov explained the complicated art of a translator far better than I ever could, in an article he wrote for the New Republic in 1941:

We can deduce now the requirements that a translator must possess in order to be able to give an ideal version of a foreign masterpiece. First of all he must have as much talent, or at least the same kind of talent, as the author he chooses…Second, he must know thoroughly the two nations and the two languages involved and be perfectly acquainted with all details relating to his author’s manner and methods; also, with the social background of words, their fashions, history and period associations. This leads to the third point: while having genius and knowledge he must possess the gift of mimicry and be able to act, as it were, the real author’s part by impersonating his tricks of demeanor and speech, his ways and his mind, with the utmost degree of verisimilitude.

So while we celebrate these remarkable books, let’s not forget the remarkable translators who made it possible for us to read them in English.  And be sure to check out these longlisted books soon!*

*Note: The full longlist can be found here.  Because so many books have not yet been released in the US, only the available ones are provided below.

We’ll be back with more information when the shortlist is produced in April!  Until then, dear readers–enjoy!

Time for a Baileys (Women’s Prize for Fiction)!

And right in time for International Women’s Day, the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction announced the Longlist for the 2017 award!

The 2017 longlist and judges! Courtesy of http://www.womensprizeforfiction.co.uk/

This is the last year that Baileys will be sponsoring the award…insert loud, long sigh here…but the plus is that prize founder, Kate Mosse, has declared that whomever the next sponsor is will be spending the whole year promoting women’s writing, not only once a year, which, at least, makes me happy.  But, for now, let’s celebrate these phenomenal women and the stunning works they’ve given us!

For those who haven’t heard us go on and on about the greatness that is the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, here’s a brief (but no less enthusiastic) recap:  This prize was was set up in 1996 to celebrate excellence, originality and accessibility in writing by women throughout the world.  In the 20 years since its establishment, the prize has become one of the most respected, most celebrated and most successful literary awards in the world, and remains one of the only prizes to recognize the unique contributions of women in fiction.   In a world where men (and white men…and middle-to-upper class white men) carry away a disproportionate amount of awards, where books about women are relegated to “Women’s Fiction” shelves, apart from the others (because Reasons), where female authors are categorized differently than male authors, where we desperately need more stories from different voices, the Baileys Prize (and whatever prize it shall soon be called) is a vital way to encourage new and diverse storytellers to set their voices free.  And, as readers, that means that their award is really our gain!

So without further ado…

If the book is available in the US, it will have a link.  If not, then the release information will be provided.  Enjoy!

Courtesy of http://www.womensprizeforfiction.co.uk/

Stay With Me, Ayobami Adebayo Will be released in August, 2017
The Power, Naomi Alderman Will be released in October, 2017
Hag-Seed, Margaret Atwood
Little Deaths, Emma Flint
The Mare, Mary Gaitskill
The Dark Circle, Linda Grant  Will be released in June, 2017
The Lesser Bohemians, Eimear McBride
Midwinter, Fiona Melrose Will be released in July, 2017
The Sport of Kings, C.E. Morgan
The Woman Next Door, Yewande Omotoso
The Lonely Hearts Hotel, Heather O’Neill
The Essex Serpent, Sarah Perry Will be released in June, 2017
Barkskins, Annie Proulx
First Love, Gwendoline Riley Will be released in March, 2017
Do Not Say We Have Nothing, Madeleine Thien
The Gustav Sonata, Rose Tremain

And the (Stoker) nominees are….

Just in case you haven’t had your fill of awards this season, dear readers, we are delighted to bring you this year’s Stoker Award Nominees, celebrating the best in English-language horror writing!

Each year, the Horror Writer’s Association presents the Bram Stoker Awards for Superior Achievement, named in honor of Bram Stoker, author of the horror novel to beat all horror novels (and Free For All favorite), Dracula. The Bram Stoker Awards were instituted immediately after the organization’s incorporation in 1987.  The first awards were presented in 1988 (for works published in 1987), and they have been presented every year since. The award itself, designed by sculptor Steven Kirk, is a stunning haunted house, with a door that opens to reveal a brass plaque engraved with the name of the winning work and its author.

How amazing is this?!

The Stoker Awards specifically avoid the word “best”, because it recognizes that horror itself is a genre that is constantly moving, changing, and pushing its own boundaries (and can often be very specific to a place, or a generation).  Instead, it uses the words “Superior Achievement”.  The categories of award have changed over the years, as well, as the genre has evolved, but since 2011, the eleven Bram Stoker Award categories are: Novel, First Novel, Short Fiction, Long Fiction, Young Adult, Fiction Collection, Poetry Collection, Anthology, Screenplay, Graphic Novel and Non-Fiction.

And can I just say, that the HWA also hosts an academic conference on horror alongside its annual conference, known as the Ann Radcliffe Academic Conference, after the pioneer of the Gothic novel, and a lady author to boot?  I think that is the coolest thing ever, not only because the HWA remains so devoted to celebrating and studying horror as a genre in the past and the future, but it also creates a wonderfully inclusive atmosphere where all kinds of readers are accepted.

So here, without further ado, are the 2016 nominees for the Stoker Awards.  There are a few titles here that we’ve covered previously at the Free For All, which is proof that we know how to pick ’em, and many that I will be added to my To Be Read list promptly!   The final announcement will be made at StokerCon, the annual conference of the HWA.

Superior Achievement in a Novel

Superior Achievement in a First Novel

Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel

Superior Achievement in Long Fiction

Superior Achievement in Short Fiction

Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection

Superior Achievement in an Anthology

Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction

Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection

Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel

Superior Achievement in a Screenplay