By Marysia Juszczakiewicz SINGAPORE: When one thinks of writing from Asia and Southeast Asia, one tends to think primarily of the big nations with long, established literary traditions, such as China and Japan. But there is just as much literary action elsewhere in the East. Singapore, for example, is on a mission to find, develop and nurture creative writing at …
Global Trade Talk: Big Book Awards, US Price Wars, Germany’s Scoyo for Sale
By Edward Nawotka and Siobhan O’Leary On Monday, Marie NDiaye won France’s Prix Goncourt for her novel Trois puissantes femmes (Three Strong Women). Meanwhile, this past Sunday, Nam Le was awarded Australia’s richest prize for fiction, the AUS $100,000 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fiction for his short story collection, The Boat. The non-fiction prize, which also carries a AUS $100,000 …
Aussie’s Take Two of Germany’s Top Children’s Prizes
By Tim Coronel Australian authors Shaun Tan and Marcus Zusak have been announced as winners in two of the major categories at the Deutsche Jugendliteraturpreis, Germany’s most prestigious awards for children’s and YA books. [Pictured: the display of Shaun Tan’s books at the Frankfurt Book Fair by his German publisher Carlsen] The awards ceremony, held on Friday night as part …
Global Trade Talk: No Winner for Nigerian Book Prize; Planeta Prize Shortly
By Edward Nawotka At a gala held in Abjua, Nigeria Saturday night, twelve judges failed to settle on a winner for the $50,000 Nigeria Prize for Literature. It is the second time since the prize was inaugurated in 2004 that no winner was announced. The prize, sponsored by Nigeria LNG Limited (the state natural gas production company), is intended to …
Global Trade Talk: Is the Nobel too Eurocentric?; America Gets Film of Dragon Tattoo
By Edward Nawotka Peter Englund, the new permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy told the Associated Press that the Nobel Prize is too “Eurocentric,” noting that Europeans have won nine out of the last ten awards. The comments come just two days before the announcement, which is expected tomorrow. Could this bode well for Amoz Oz, the frontrunner? After all, …
German Buch News: Bertelsmann Founder Mohn Dies; Roth Wins Die Welt Lit Prize
By Siobhan O’Leary Reinhard Mohn, the post-war founder of German media giant Bertelsmann, has died at the age of 88 (as reported in a press release from the company and covered in BuchReport). Mohn was born in Gütersloh in 1921, the fifth generation of the Bertelsmann/Mohn business family, and took over the reins of his family’s printing and publishing house C. …
What’s the Buzz: Alarcon Wins Berlin Lit Award; Rizzoli Speaks French
By Edward Nawotka Deutsche Welle reports that Daniel Alarcon has won the inaugural International Literature Award from Berlin’s Haus der Kulturen der Welt (House of World Cultures). He was awarded 25,000-euro ($36,000) for his debut novel “Lost City Radio.” The prize was established to “showcase the works of talented Asian, African and Latin American writers.” Publishers Marketplace notes that in …
German Buch News: German Book Prize Finalists
By Siobhan O’Leary With the Frankfurt Book Fair just around the corner, the jury for the German Book Prize has announced its shortlist of six titles from the original longlist of 154. The six novels still in the running as reported in the Boersenblatt are Rainer Merkel’s Lichtjahre entfernt, Herta Müller’s Atemschaukel, Überm Rauschen by Norbert Scheuer, Du stirbst nicht by Kathrin Schmidt, Clemens …
Bonus Material: What Can Publishers Learn from Oddsmakers?
By Edward Nawotka No other country in the world has so many people betting on their top book prize as does the UK, where the annual announcement of the Booker Prize Shortlist — released yesterday — prompts bookies to whet their pencils and scratch out odds on who will win the big prize. It’s a rich irony, for publishers themselves …
German Buch News: Indie Award “Hotlist” Criticized as Not Inclusive Enough
By Siobhan O’Leary The decision by a band of independent German publishers to launch their own book “Hotlist” as an alternative to the German Book Awards (see our coverage here) has been met with quite a bit of criticism in the trades. For starters, the Boersenblatt reports that the Kurt Wolff Stiftung (KWS) — a prominent foundation that supports the …