There might be an election campaign on but it’s nice to know Julia has thought about books at this time. She did choose the shortlists didn’t she or was it Kevin back then on 19 July? Any way the shortlist for our most lucrative prize ($100,000) for fiction was announced then. As the year drags on, the same names are popping up on the award circuit so it’s good to see some titles here that haven’t appeared on other short lists. The list is:
- Summertime by JM Coetzee
- The Book of Emmett Deborah Forster
- The lakewoman by Alan Gould
- Dog Boy Eva Hornung
- Ransom David Malouf
- Lovesong Alex Miller
- As the Earth Turns Silver Alison Wong
Of Alison Wong’s book the judges call it a “haunting first novel … [that] draws on her Chinese family history in its account of New Zealand in the early years of last century”.
The Lake Woman by Alan Gould involves an Australian soldier parachuting down “the night before D Day” and landing “in a vast lake of flooded fields” where he encounters a “mysterious woman”. The judges call it a bold experiment “confidently and affectingly sustained from hectic beginning to peaceful end”.
I’m full of admiration for the ambition of Eva Hornung’s (she previously published as Eva Sallis) novel Dog Boy told from the point of view of a young boy adopted by stray dogs living on the streets of Moscow. The judges say: “To the ancient folkloric and literary traditions of children lost, then raised … in the animal world, Eva Hornung brings her own compassionate and contemporary outrage at the treatment of refugees and outcasts”.
There are also awards of $100,000 each for non-fiction, children’s and young adult books. You can view all the shortlists here.