Literary Awards
Man Booker International Prize 2009
The Man Booker International Prize is unique in the world of literature in that it can be won by an author of any nationality, providing that his or her work is available in the English language. It is awarded every second year.On 27 May 2009, Alice Munro was announced as the winner of the third Man Booker International Prize.
Alice Munro was born in Wingham, Ontario in July 1931. Her first collection of stories, Dance of the Happy Shades, was published in 1968 and won the Governor General’s Award, Canada’s highest literary prize. Her other work includes Lives of Girls and Women which won the Canadian Booksellers Association International Book Year Award; The Beggar Maid which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize; Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage; Vintage Munro; and Runaway. Alice was nominated for the Man Booker International Prize in 2007 and won the Man Booker International Prize in 2009.
Nautilus Book Award 2010
The Avenue of Eternal Tranquillity Karen Overman-Edmiston $17.95
In the arctic conditions of a Moscow winter, a man drives to the car park of a city hotel. He takes off his hat and coat, lies down in the snow, goes to sleep, and dies. Why? From a window high up in the Hotel Rossiya, a couple looks down upon the figure lying in the snow. Hannah and Luke have just arrived in Moscow after travelling across Mongolia and Siberia. They had not seen the Russian leave his car, but they did see the police arrive, take notes, cover the body with a piece of matting, and then leave. The Avenue of Eternal Tranquillity charts the story of Pyotr and Yuliya, living in the Soviet Union of the 1960s. Their tale is interwoven with that of Luke and Hannah travelling the trans-Siberian railway from Beijing to Moscow in the early years of the new millennium. Their paths collide during the festive season in Moscow, 2002. Set in Russia and China, this story traces two deeply founded relationships that provide insights into love’s tenuous beginnings to its rewards and complexities, and its potential for tragedy.
Man Booker Prize 2009
The Man Booker Prize for Fiction represents the very best of contemporary fiction. One of the world's most distinctive awards, and one of incomparable influence, it continues to be the pinnacle for every fiction writer. Established by Booker plc in 1968, the prize aims to reward the best novel of the year written by a citizen of the Commonwealth or Republic of Ireland. The Man Booker judges are selected from the country's finest critics, writers and academics to maintain the consistent excellence of the prize. The winner receives £50,000 and both the winner and the shortlisted authors are guaranteed a worldwide audience and a dramatic increase in book sales.
Wolf Hall Hilary Mantel $32.99
England, the 1520s. Henry VIII is on the throne, but has no heir. Cardinal Wolsey is his chief advisor, charged with securing the divorce the pope refuses to grant. Into this atmosphere of distrust and need comes Thomas Cromwell, first as Wolseys clerk, and later his successor. Cromwell is a wholly original man: the son of a brutal blacksmith, a political genius, a briber, a charmer, a bully, a man with a delicate and deadly expertise in manipulating people and events. Ruthless in pursuit of his own interests, he is as ambitious in his wider politics as he is for himself. His reforming agenda is carried out in the grip of a self-interested parliament and a king who fluctuates between romantic passions and murderous rages. From one of our finest living writers, WOLF HALL that very rare thing: a truly great English novel, one that explores the intersection of individual psychology and wider politics. With a vast array of characters, and richly overflowing with incident, it peels back history to show us Tudor England as a half-made society, moulding itself with great passion and suffering and courage.
