Pulitzer prize | The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/books/pulitzerprize Latest news and features from theguardian.com, the world's leading liberal voice en-gb Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. 2016 Thu, 08 Dec 2016 08:16:25 GMT 2016-12-08T08:16:25Z en-gb Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. 2016 The Guardian https://assets.guim.co.uk/images/guardian-logo-rss.c45beb1bafa34b347ac333af2e6fe23f.png https://www.theguardian.com Viet Thanh Nguyen wins Dayton peace prize for The Sympathizer https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/12/viet-thanh-nguyen-wins-dayton-peace-prize-for-the-sympathizer <p>Vietnamese-American writer, whose Vietnam war novel also won the Pulitzer, awarded for ‘profound and startling’ debut</p><p>The Vietnamese-American writer Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer prize-winning novel <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/mar/12/the-sympathizer-viet-thanh-nguyen-review-debut">The Sympathizer</a> has won the Dayton literary peace prize, a unique award that “celebrates the power of literature to promote peace, social justice and global understanding”.<br></p><p>Nguyen’s novel, winner of the Pulitzer this spring, looks at the legacy of the Vietnam war through the story of a double agent. The organisers of the Dayton prize, which is worth $10,000 (£8,000) and was inspired by the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/oct/08/bosnia-herzegovina-elections-the-worlds-most-complicated-system-of-government">Dayton peace accords that ended the war in Bosnia in 1995</a>, called it a “profound, startling, and beautifully crafted debut ... both gripping spy yarn and astute exploration of extreme politics”.</p><p> <span>Related: </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jul/26/viet-thanh-nguyen-winning-the-pulitzer-changed-the-value-of-my-book-and-myself">Viet Thanh Nguyen: 'Winning the Pulitzer changed the value of my book and myself'</a> </p><p> <span>Related: </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2015/aug/06/after-the-atomic-bomb-hiroshima-and-nagasaki-then-and-now-in-pictures">After the A-bomb: Hiroshima and Nagasaki then and now – in pictures</a> </p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/12/viet-thanh-nguyen-wins-dayton-peace-prize-for-the-sympathizer">Continue reading...</a> Fiction Books Awards and prizes Culture Pulitzer prize Wed, 12 Oct 2016 10:51:27 GMT http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/12/viet-thanh-nguyen-wins-dayton-peace-prize-for-the-sympathizer Photograph: AP Photograph: AP Alison Flood 2016-10-12T10:51:27Z Adam Haslett: ‘I think of this book as a love story about a family’ https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jun/19/adam-haslett-imagine-me-gone-author-interview Adam Haslett has drawn on his father’s suicide for his second novel, which explores events from a different family member’s viewpoint<p><strong>Adam Haslett’s short story collection <em>You Are Not a Stranger Here</em> was a Pulitzer prize and National Book award finalist. His first novel, <em>Union Atlantic</em>, won the Lambda literary award, and his second, <em>Imagine Me Gone</em>, is published by Little, Brown. He lives in New York.</strong></p><p><strong><em>Imagine Me Gone</em> is about how individuals in a family respond to a father’s mental illness and suicide. Is it true to say it is based on personal experience?</strong><br>This is the most personal book I have written. Mental illness is in my family – my own father committed suicide when I was 14. So it draws more directly on family material than my first novel, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jul/03/union-atlantic-adam-haslett-review"><em>Union Atlantic</em></a>. The challenge was to give myself enough distance from the material, to liberate myself from the facts. I had to give myself permission to use material from life, and also to depart from it, to take the imaginative leaps necessary to shape a novel.</p><p>I’ve always written about the world I occupy, and I am gay, so the psychic life of that interests me</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jun/19/adam-haslett-imagine-me-gone-author-interview">Continue reading...</a> Books Fiction Culture Pulitzer prize Sun, 19 Jun 2016 07:00:02 GMT http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jun/19/adam-haslett-imagine-me-gone-author-interview Photograph: Steve Bisgrove/REX/Shutterstock Photograph: Steve Bisgrove/REX/Shutterstock Alice O'Keeffe 2016-06-19T07:00:02Z Viet Thanh Nguyen adds Edgar award to Pulitzer triumph https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/29/viet-thanh-nguyen-edgar-prize-to-pulitzer-the-sympathizer <p>Debut novel The Sympathizer follows win at the US’s top fiction prize with leading honour for crime writing</p><p>Fresh from winning a Pulitzer prize, Viet Thanh Nguyen’s debut novel The Sympathizer has landed the best first novel prize in the US’s top awards for crime fiction.</p><p> <span>Related: </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/mar/12/the-sympathizer-viet-thanh-nguyen-review-debut">The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen review – a bold, artful debut</a> </p><p> <span>Related: </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/22/pulitzer-prize-fiction-viet-thanh-nguyen-the-sympathizer">Pulitzer winner Viet Thanh Nguyen: 'My book has something to offend everyone'</a> </p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/29/viet-thanh-nguyen-edgar-prize-to-pulitzer-the-sympathizer">Continue reading...</a> Crime fiction Fiction Books Culture US news Awards and prizes Edgar Allan Poe Pulitzer prize Fri, 29 Apr 2016 17:16:58 GMT http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/29/viet-thanh-nguyen-edgar-prize-to-pulitzer-the-sympathizer Photograph: AP Photograph: AP Alison Flood 2016-04-29T17:16:58Z Pulitzer winner Viet Thanh Nguyen: 'My book has something to offend everyone' https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/22/pulitzer-prize-fiction-viet-thanh-nguyen-the-sympathizer <p>The Sympathizer won despite Nguyen feeling he was writing against the tastes of most publishers, who insist that writers of color pander to white audiences</p><p>Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/18/hamilton-pulizer-prize-drama-lin-manuel-miranda">took home the Pulitzer prize for fiction this week</a>. This will make him an author newly in demand. But in an interview, the artist tells the Guardian he is under no illusions about how books get sold.</p><p>“The literary industry and the entire social and cultural system of the United States work to tempt writers of color into writing for white people,” says Nguyen. “‘If I had written the book for a white audience, I would have sold it for a lot more money and many more publishers would have been bidding for it.”</p><p> <span>Related: </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/mar/12/the-sympathizer-viet-thanh-nguyen-review-debut">The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen review – a bold, artful debut</a> </p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/22/pulitzer-prize-fiction-viet-thanh-nguyen-the-sympathizer">Continue reading...</a> Fiction Books Culture Pulitzer prize Awards and prizes Vietnam Fri, 22 Apr 2016 16:36:44 GMT http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/22/pulitzer-prize-fiction-viet-thanh-nguyen-the-sympathizer Photograph: PR Image Photograph: PR Image Angela Chen 2016-04-22T16:36:44Z Enter surfing’s secret garden and get ready for the ride of your life | Richard Williams https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2016/apr/22/surfing-new-wave-william-finnegan-pulitzer-prize <p>William Finnegan’s book Barbarian Days is much more than tales of one foaming wall after another as he reveals there is no such thing as the perfect wave</p><p>Catch a wave, we were advised by the Beach Boys a long time ago, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLgWbH-qhVo">and you’re sitting on top of the world</a>. In a song lasting a mere two minutes and five seconds, they captured a universe. William Finnegan makes the same story last through 447 pages, but <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/19/barbarian-days-a-surfing-life-william-finnegan-review">Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life</a> is much more than the description of one foaming wall of water after another. Although the author does, indeed, take the reader out with him time after time towards the wave-sets that roll endlessly towards the surfing beaches where he has spent a fair proportion of his 64 years, he makes good on the implicit promise that each ride will offer a different experience.</p><p> <span>Related: </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/06/william-finnegan-new-yorker-surfing-memoir">William Finnegan: 'I was reluctant to come out of the closet as a surfer'</a> </p><p> <span>Related: </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2016/apr/14/the-holy-trinity-of-surfing-wave-board-and-rider-in-pictures">The holy trinity of surfing: wave, board and rider –&nbsp;in pictures</a> </p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2016/apr/22/surfing-new-wave-william-finnegan-pulitzer-prize">Continue reading...</a> Surfing Sport US sports Pulitzer prize Fri, 22 Apr 2016 10:08:29 GMT http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2016/apr/22/surfing-new-wave-william-finnegan-pulitzer-prize Photograph: Penguin Press Photograph: Penguin Press Richard Williams 2016-04-22T10:08:29Z Disgraced review – Pulitzer-winning play challenges audience to question their tolerance https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/apr/22/disgraced-review-pulitzer-winning-play-challenges-audience-to-question-their-tolerance <p><strong>Wharf 1 theatre, Sydney Theatre Company</strong><br>Terrorism, race and religion are just some issues that swirl through a New York apartment, in the Australian premiere of Ayad Akhtar’s confronting play</p><p>US writer <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2013/may/07/pulitzer-playwright-ayad-akhtar">Ayad Akhtar</a>’s 2013 Pulitzer prize-winning play is taut, engrossing and powerful; an examination of our post-9/11 western world, played out in one tastefully decorated, spacious Manhattan apartment.</p><p>Into it steps Amir Kapoor (Sachin Joab), a US-born, Muslim-raised merger and acquisitions specialist in a Jewish law firm. Kapoor, an apostate, has rejected Islam as a “backward way of thinking and being” and is attempting to supplant it with American capitalism – but he struggles to fully unburden himself of the cultural weight wrought by Islamic extremism.</p><p> <span>Related: </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/22/open-thread-what-book-or-series-did-you-grow-up-with">Open thread: what book or series did you grow up with?</a> </p><p> <span>Related: </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/apr/19/untold-stories-western-sydney-theatre-companies-put-diversity-at-centre-stage">Untold stories: western Sydney theatre companies put diversity at centre stage</a> </p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/apr/22/disgraced-review-pulitzer-winning-play-challenges-audience-to-question-their-tolerance">Continue reading...</a> Theatre Australia news Culture Stage Race issues Race & religion Pulitzer prize Islam Fri, 22 Apr 2016 07:31:39 GMT http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/apr/22/disgraced-review-pulitzer-winning-play-challenges-audience-to-question-their-tolerance Photograph: Prudence Upton Photograph: Prudence Upton Steve Dow 2016-04-22T07:31:39Z Henry Threadgill on his Pulitzer prize win for music: 'I just try to stay hopeful' https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/apr/18/henry-threadgill-wins-pulitzer-prize-music-jazz <p>The great jazz musician talks about his surprise at taking the prize, what it means to win, and why avant garde music no longer needs to grate on the listener</p><p>Prior to Monday, the only jazz performers to win a Pulitzer prize for music (while still alive) were Wynton Marsalis and Ornette Coleman. A few other greats, such as Thelonious Monk, had been honored posthumously – but denied the increased standing and support that might have been valuable when they were still creating art. Now we can add a third name to this list: that of composer and multi-instrumentalist Henry Threadgill – a veteran of the Chicago collective the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (or AACM), who is now based in New York.</p><p>By giving <a href="http://www.pulitzer.org/winners/henry-threadgill">their 2016 prize</a> to Threadgill’s recent album for his band Zooid, titled <a href="https://henrythreadgill.bandcamp.com/album/in-for-a-penny-in-for-a-pound">In for a Penny, In for a Pound</a>, the Pulitzer judges are recognizing not only one of last year’s standout recordings – the Guardian’s John Fordham <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jun/25/henry-threadgills-zooid-in-for-a-penny-in-for-a-pound-review-warm-welcoming-improv">praised</a> its “surging energy” – but also the long career of a noted composer, saxophonist and flutist. This news follows trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith’s Pulitzer-finalist status in 2013 (for Ten Freedom Summers). Clearly, the Pulitzer prize has taken the steady critique of its past disinterest in musicians associated with jazz to heart – a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/09/arts/dissonant-thoughts-on-the-music-pulitzers.html">criticism levied</a> even by the 2003 award winner, John Adams. </p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/apr/18/henry-threadgill-wins-pulitzer-prize-music-jazz">Continue reading...</a> Jazz Pulitzer prize Awards and prizes Books Culture Music Mon, 18 Apr 2016 22:30:09 GMT http://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/apr/18/henry-threadgill-wins-pulitzer-prize-music-jazz Photograph: PULITZER BOARD/HANDOUT/EPA Photograph: PULITZER BOARD/HANDOUT/EPA Seth Colter Walls 2016-04-18T22:30:09Z Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer: from overlooked to Pulitzer winner https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/18/viet-thanh-nguyen-the-sympathizer-pulitzer-overlooked <p>This year’s Pulitzers have been awarded to books that, while highly praised, were not the most talked-about of last year. Thanks to the prize, that is set to change</p><p>The awarding of the Pulitzer prize for fiction to <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/mar/12/the-sympathizer-viet-thanh-nguyen-review-debut">Viet Thanh Nguyen’s debut novel The Sympathizer</a> may have surprised some. It’s the sort of book that, when it appeared last fall to <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/mar/12/the-sympathizer-viet-thanh-nguyen-review-debut">rave reviews</a>, didn’t exactly become a conversation-starter. Literary types spent most of the fall arguing about <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/05/a-little-life-hanya-yanagihara-review">A Little Life</a> in the pages of various literary reviews. Neither the <a href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/">London Review of Books</a> nor the <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/">New York Review of Books</a> has touched it. The New Yorker ran a short review in its Briefly Noted section. That was it, until today’s announcement.</p><p>For people who do not follow the politics of literary awards, this might seem curious. They assume that winning such a prestigious national award would be the crowning achievement of a much-laurelled book. And The Sympathizer, which explores the Vietnam war and its legacy from the perspective of a Vietnamese spy, did appear on many newspaper book reviews’ best-of lists. It won or was shortlisted for a few other prizes. But other than that, it was overlooked.</p><p> <span>Related: </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/mar/12/the-sympathizer-viet-thanh-nguyen-review-debut">The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen review – a bold, artful debut</a> </p><p> <span>Related: </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/19/barbarian-days-a-surfing-life-william-finnegan-review">Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan review – one hell of a ride…</a> </p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/18/viet-thanh-nguyen-the-sympathizer-pulitzer-overlooked">Continue reading...</a> Fiction Pulitzer prize Books Awards and prizes Culture Mon, 18 Apr 2016 21:20:02 GMT http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/18/viet-thanh-nguyen-the-sympathizer-pulitzer-overlooked Photograph: PULITZER BOARD/HANDOUT/EPA Photograph: PULITZER BOARD/HANDOUT/EPA Michelle Dean 2016-04-18T21:20:02Z Hamilton wins Pulitzer prize for drama: 'a landmark American musical' https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/18/hamilton-pulizer-prize-drama-lin-manuel-miranda <p>The judges gave awards to Lin-Manuel Miranda’s multiethnic Broadway hit, a Washington Post reporter’s book on Isis, the AP’s exposé on slavery and more</p><p>Hamilton, the Broadway musical that has been a critical and commercial smash hit, has won the Pulitzer prize for drama.</p><p>The judges called Lin-Manuel Miranda’s play – which tells the story of the life of founding father Alexander Hamilton and the American revolution in rap using a multiethnic cast – “a landmark American musical”.</p><p lang="ro" dir="ltr">Grateful grateful grateful grateful grateful grateful grateful grateful grateful grateful grateful grateful grateful grateful great full</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/18/hamilton-pulizer-prize-drama-lin-manuel-miranda">Continue reading...</a> Pulitzer prize Awards and prizes Culture Stage Theatre Music Broadway Hamilton Lin-Manuel Miranda Mon, 18 Apr 2016 20:51:58 GMT http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/18/hamilton-pulizer-prize-drama-lin-manuel-miranda Photograph: Charles Sykes/Invision/AP Photograph: Charles Sykes/Invision/AP Amber Jamieson 2016-04-18T20:51:58Z The Abundance by Annie Dillard review – a world of wonder, acutely observed https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/06/the-abundance-by-annie-dillard-review <p>In his foreword to this collection of essays, Geoff Dyer affectionately calls Dillard ‘scatty’, but it’s when she is at her most unconventional that this Pulitzer prize-winning writer shines most brightly</p><p>For Annie Dillard there’s no realm of knowledge without its accompanying gasp of wonder; she has a mystic’s appreciation of the glory and plurality of the world, and a gift for communicating astonishment. This collection of essays has tremendous range: amoebae to the Andromeda galaxy; specks of dust to planetary motion; redemption to the brute facts of suffering. Dillard is&nbsp;a Pulitzer prize-winner with a huge following in the US, but her work has been something of a well-kept secret in&nbsp;the UK. With the release of this new&nbsp;volume, that should change.</p><p>The anthology opens with “Total Eclipse” from her 1982 essay collection <em>Teaching a Stone to Talk</em>. Dillard describes driving five hours from her home on the Pacific coast to assemble with hundreds of others on a hillside to&nbsp;witness an eclipse, but it’s doubtful any of those others were such acute observers, or so sensitive to the meanings that as human beings we cast into the world. She captures the shadow-cone of the moon speeding towards her: “It rolled at you across the land at 1,800 miles an hour, hauling darkness behind it like plague … This was the universe about which we have read so much and never before felt: the universe as a clock-work of loose spheres flung at stupefying, unauthorized speeds.”</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/06/the-abundance-by-annie-dillard-review">Continue reading...</a> Science and nature Religion Books Culture Pulitzer prize Wed, 06 Apr 2016 15:00:20 GMT http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/06/the-abundance-by-annie-dillard-review Photograph: Marco Bertorello/AFP/Getty Images Photograph: Marco Bertorello/AFP/Getty Images Gavin Francis 2016-04-06T15:00:20Z Elizabeth Strout interview: from years of rejection to the Pulitzer prize and bestseller lists https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/feb/19/elizabeth-strout-i-dont-want-to-write-melodrama-interview <p>The novelist talks about her long struggle to get published, the Olive Kitteridge fan club and autobiography in fiction</p><p>Early in <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/feb/05/my-name-is-lucy-barton-by-eliabeth-strout-review">Elizabeth Strout</a>’s new novel, <em>My Name Is Lucy Barton, </em>the narrator, a doctor, after wishing his patient good night and leaving her hospital bedside, “made a fist and kissed it, then held it in the air as he unswished the curtain and left the room”. In both its deficiency (an expression of tenderness curbed by protocols both professional and personal) and its sincerity (the militant earnestness of the salute), the gesture seems to contain everything Strout is saying about love: that it’s hard and awkward and will always be inadequately expressed, but that it’s also something we need to grab and hold in our fists. Lucy is recovering in hospital after a mysterious infection following the removal of her appendix. These nine weeks of her recovery become a lifetime – figuratively in terms of her boredom and loneliness, and structurally, as Lucy tells the story of her childhood, marriage and, most important of all, how she became a writer. They’re all meditations prompted by the arrival of her estranged mother, whose expressions of love are even more compromised than the doctor’s raised fist.</p><p>There are pieces of me in every character, because that’s my starting point, I’m the only person I know</p><p> <span>Related: </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/feb/05/my-name-is-lucy-barton-by-eliabeth-strout-review">My Name Is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout review – beautifully compelling</a> </p><p>It’s fabulous that Olive speaks to women. I think there must be a&nbsp;lot of things people don’t say that she says for them</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/feb/19/elizabeth-strout-i-dont-want-to-write-melodrama-interview">Continue reading...</a> Fiction Books Pulitzer prize Awards and prizes Culture Fri, 19 Feb 2016 16:00:12 GMT http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/feb/19/elizabeth-strout-i-dont-want-to-write-melodrama-interview Photograph: Todd Heisler/New York Times / Redux / eyevine Photograph: Todd Heisler/New York Times / Redux / eyevine Hermione Hoby 2016-02-19T16:00:12Z Triumph trumps tragedy in the life of Jean Stafford https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/26/shelf-life-jean-stafford-the-internal-castle The Pulitzer-prize winning author’s acerbic, lugubrious tone makes for a delicious read<p>When I began this column, a Famous Novelist got in touch to urge me to try the short stories of Jean Stafford. Shame on me, but I’d never heard of Stafford, who died in 1979, nine years after receiving a Pulitzer prize for her <em>Collected Stories</em> (it’s the centenary of her birth this year). Still, I did as I was told, and ordered a copy online – an American edition, because she seems not to be in print in the UK. I’m so happy I did. Stafford, it turns out, is just my bag. Not only is she allergic to what she calls, in one story, “familial piety”, she has such a delicious tone. She writes, as she once put it, in “the voice of an undertaker”, by which I assume she means that she tends to sound wry even as she lays her bodies out.</p><p>It’s great, discovering a new old writer like this. In addition to the stories, there are three novels and a non-fiction book about Lee Harvey Oswald’s mother. (“Remarkable,” says Joyce Carol Oates of this.) Perhaps I’ll read a biography, too. Stafford’s life was sad and complicated. Her first husband, the poet Robert Lowell, seriously injured her when he crashed their car while drunk. Her face was disfigured, and she subsequently endured reconstructive surgery, an experience that informs one of her best-known stories. In <em>The Interior Castle</em>, Pansy Vanneman is still in hospital six weeks after a car accident. Having woken up to the sound of a priest administering Extreme Unction to the patient next to her, she must now – this may be even worse – endure her surgeon talking of “our nose” and how “we” will be a new person when “we” can breathe again. Though reluctant to get into the business of administering unction myself, I do feel quite fervently about this. Stafford is touched by greatness, and I want everyone to know it.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/26/shelf-life-jean-stafford-the-internal-castle">Continue reading...</a> Books Culture Fiction Pulitzer prize Awards and prizes Mon, 26 Oct 2015 08:00:00 GMT http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/26/shelf-life-jean-stafford-the-internal-castle Photograph: PR ‘The voice of an undertaker’ … Jean Stafford Photograph: PR ‘The voice of an undertaker’ … Jean Stafford Rachel Cooke 2015-10-26T08:00:00Z The Moor’s Account by Laila Lalami review – a story with extraordinary power https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/20/the-moors-account-laila-lalami-review <p>The tale of a disastrous attempt at conquest is retold from the point of view of a Moroccan slave in this rich, gripping novel</p><p>In 1527, a fleet of five ships set sail from Spain for the New World, on&nbsp;a mission to settle the recently discovered land of La Florida. After making landfall on the Gulf coast, near where the city of St&nbsp;Petersburg stands today, the expedition’s leader, Pánfilo de Narváez, headed into the country’s unmapped interior in search of the gold he had convinced himself would be found there. Within days his men became hopelessly lost; soon after they&nbsp;began to die, from starvation, disease, drowning and the depredations of local tribes. In the end, of an original contingent of 300, just four survived: three Spanish gentlemen – Álvar Núñez Cabeza de&nbsp;Vaca, Alonso del Castillo and&nbsp;Andrés&nbsp;Dorantes – and Estebanico, a&nbsp;Moorish slave.</p><p>History, it’s said, is written by the victors. While the Narváez expedition was a catastrophe of almost absurd proportions, its name used for years afterwards as a byword for disaster, these four men (who were eventually picked up in northern Mexico by a group of Spanish slavers, “strangely dressed and in the company of Indians”), were, if not victors, at least&nbsp;survivors. Together, they’d lived through the worst the continent could throw at them and even, ultimately, carved out a niche for themselves as&nbsp;healers among the indigenous Americans. Their reappearance was a triumph bordering on the miraculous, and Cabeza de Vaca’s tale of their adventures, which he published on his return to Spain, was justly celebrated. But his story also revealed that, even among survivors, some are more equal than others. While the three Castilians were given joint billing, the slave who had been with them every step of the way for the eight long years of their exile was confined to a single line of biography. “The fourth [of us],” says Cabeza de Vaca, “is Estebanico, an Arab Negro from Azemmour.” And that’s it.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/20/the-moors-account-laila-lalami-review">Continue reading...</a> Fiction Books Culture Pulitzer prize Man Booker prize 2015 Thu, 20 Aug 2015 15:00:09 GMT http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/20/the-moors-account-laila-lalami-review Photograph: PR Broadening the horizons of historical fiction … Laila Lalami Photograph: PR Broadening the horizons of historical fiction … Laila Lalami Sarah Crown 2015-08-20T15:00:09Z Want to win big literary prizes? Make sure your story is about men https://www.theguardian.com/books/shortcuts/2015/jun/01/authors-focus-female-characters-literary-prizes-women <p>Books with female subjects are less likely to win literary prizes. But why do men rarely feel confident enough to write about women?</p><p>Like anyone else who reads a lot of books, I’m not a bit surprised by <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jun/01/books-about-women-less-likely-to-win-prizes-study-finds">the news that book prizes favour narratives with male characters at their centre</a>. In fact, literary prizes tend to favour books by men about men, as novelist <a href="http://nicolagriffith.com/2015/05/26/books-about-women-tend-not-to-win-awards/">Nicola Griffith’s research</a> reveals: <a href="http://www.themanbookerprize.com/timeline">the Man Booker</a>, for example, has awarded nine of its past 15 awards to men writing primarily about men, the <a href="http://www.pulitzer.org/bycat/Fiction">Pulitzer</a> has awarded eight. The first five years of this century skewed the figures for the Man Booker: <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/jan/06/fiction.bookerprize2001">True History of the Kelly Gang</a>,<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/life-of-pi"> Life of Pi</a>, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/jan/18/featuresreviews.guardianreview18">Vernon God Little</a>, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/apr/10/fiction.alanhollinghurst">The Line of Beauty</a> and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/may/06/fiction.johnbanville">The Sea</a>, all by men and primarily about boys or men (and a tiger).</p><p>Novels focusing on women or girls are very much less well-regarded, it seems. Griffith finds only two recent Man Bookers have been awarded to such narratives, and none of the Pulitzers. She’s right to point out the obvious: stories about women are stories about half of the world. Fail to reward those stories with recognition and publicity and you’re side-lining half of human experience. Quite aside from anything else, that’s robbing us of some good future books: publishers are often more likely to publish books that they think have a chance at a prize.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/shortcuts/2015/jun/01/authors-focus-female-characters-literary-prizes-women">Continue reading...</a> Fiction Books Awards and prizes Culture Man Booker International prize Pulitzer prize Colm Tóibín Ian McEwan Hilary Mantel Donna Tartt Mon, 01 Jun 2015 18:42:46 GMT http://www.theguardian.com/books/shortcuts/2015/jun/01/authors-focus-female-characters-literary-prizes-women Photograph: Kim Haughton/Guardian Photograph: Kim Haughton/Guardian Natalie Haynes 2015-06-01T18:42:46Z Books about women less likely to win prizes, study finds https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jun/01/books-about-women-less-likely-to-win-prizes-study-finds <p>Study of six major awards in the last 15 years shows male subjects the predominant focus of winning novels</p><p><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/quiz/2015/jun/01/female-protagonists-in-fiction-quiz">• How well do you know fiction’s female protagonists - quiz</a></p><p>Analysis of the last 15 years of winners of six major literary awards by the critically acclaimed author Nicola Griffith has found that a novel is more likely to land a prize if the focus of the narrative is male.</p><p>Griffith looked at the winners of the Pulitzer, Man Booker, National Book award, National Book Critics’ Circle award, Hugo and Newbery medal winners over the last 15 years. She <a href="http://nicolagriffith.com/2015/05/26/books-about-women-tend-not-to-win-awards/">collated the gender of the winners, and that of their protagonists</a>, finding that for the Pulitzer, for example, “women wrote zero out of 15 prize-winning books wholly from the point of view of a woman or girl”.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jun/01/books-about-women-less-likely-to-win-prizes-study-finds">Continue reading...</a> Fiction Books Culture Awards and prizes Booker prize Pulitzer prize National Book Awards Hugo awards Publishing Mon, 01 Jun 2015 12:02:48 GMT http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jun/01/books-about-women-less-likely-to-win-prizes-study-finds Photograph: BBC/Sally Head Productions/Sally Head Productions Photograph: BBC/Sally Head Productions/Sally Head Productions Alison Flood 2015-06-01T12:02:48Z Michael O’Brien obituary https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/may/14/michael-obrien <p>Historian whose work changed perceptions of the American south</p><p>The historian Michael O’Brien, who has died from cancer aged 67, spent his career exploring the intellectual culture of the American south. When he began research on southern history in the early 1970s, this seemed an improbable enterprise. The verdict of Henry Adams, delivered half a century earlier, remained authoritative: “Strictly, the southerner had no mind; he had temperament.” Most imagined the south to be the antithesis of the forward-looking US of the postwar decades – it was anti-modern, anti-intellectual, provincial, deformed by slavery and its legacy, and not a region hospitable to the life of the mind.</p><p>Michael showed how mistaken this was. His aim was never to play down the realities of the south’s brutal racial past. But the south had no monopoly on racial violence or anti-intellectualism. Michael took seriously the idea that the region had had intellectuals, and discerned in their long-neglected writings an attempt to gain control, if only in the imagination, of a shifting and fragile social world. More than anyone else, he brought their universe of ideas back to life, notably in his 2004 book Conjectures of Order: Intellectual Life and the American South, 1810-1860.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/may/14/michael-obrien">Continue reading...</a> History Books University of Cambridge History Higher education Education American civil war US news Pulitzer prize Thu, 14 May 2015 16:54:28 GMT http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/may/14/michael-obrien Photograph: /PR Michael O'Brien found that southern intellectuals were not unthinkingly conservative, but determined makers of new social and political worlds Photograph: /PR Michael O'Brien found that southern intellectuals were not unthinkingly conservative, but determined makers of new social and political worlds Joel Isaac and Samuel James 2015-05-14T16:54:28Z Anthony Doerr: 'I grew up where to call yourself a writer would be pretentious' https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/apr/22/anthony-doerr-pulitzer-interview <p>The novelist has just won the Pulitzer for All the Light We Cannot See, a book it took 10 years to write, which has given him his biggest audience yet</p><p>It was Anthony Doerr’s wife Shauna who saw the news first. She was the one who was secretly streaming the Pulitzer ceremonies on YouTube in another room of their Paris apartment. He was in the kitchen with their son Owen, eating mint chocolate chip ice cream. She came in shaking and the phone started ringing, because he’d just won the Big Kahuna of American literary prizes: the Pulitzer for fiction.</p><p>“I’d sort of known it was the day,” Doerr said on the phone to the Guardian on Tuesday. But he was trying not to think about it, or expect the win. He had enough to be grateful for: even before the prize was announced he was already enjoying the greatest success of his career with <a href="http://books.simonandschuster.com/All-the-Light-We-Cannot-See/Anthony-Doerr/9781476746586">All the Light We Cannot See</a>.</p><p> <span>Related: </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/apr/21/pulitzer-prize-fiction-all-the-light-we-cannot-see-anthony-doerr">Pulitzer prize for fiction goes to All the Light We Cannot See</a> </p><p> <span>Related: </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/may/17/all-the-light-we-cannot-see-anthony-doerr-review">All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr review – a story of morality, science and Nazi occupation</a> </p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/apr/22/anthony-doerr-pulitzer-interview">Continue reading...</a> Books Pulitzer prize Awards and prizes Culture Fiction Wed, 22 Apr 2015 13:26:05 GMT http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/apr/22/anthony-doerr-pulitzer-interview Photograph: ULF ANDERSEN/Getty Images Photograph: ULF ANDERSEN/Getty Images Michelle Dean 2015-04-22T13:26:05Z Pulitzer prize for fiction goes to All the Light We Cannot See https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/apr/21/pulitzer-prize-fiction-all-the-light-we-cannot-see-anthony-doerr <p>Anthony Doerr’s ‘imaginative and intricate’ novel of the second world war takes $10,000 honour</p><p>Anthony Doerr’s second world war novel <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/may/17/all-the-light-we-cannot-see-anthony-doerr-review">All the Light We Cannot See</a> has won the Pulitzer prize for fiction.</p><p>Worth $10,000 (£6,700), the fiction Pulitzer – which goes to “distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life” – has been won in the past by writers including Harper Lee, William Faulkner and Alice Walker. Doerr’s novel, which has already been a finalist for America’s National Book awards and which was chosen as one of Amazon.com’s books of the year, beat titles by former winner Richard Ford, Laila Lalami, and Joyce Carol Oates, who has been shortlisted three times previously.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/apr/21/pulitzer-prize-fiction-all-the-light-we-cannot-see-anthony-doerr">Continue reading...</a> Pulitzer prize Fiction Books Awards and prizes US news Culture Tue, 21 Apr 2015 10:49:00 GMT http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/apr/21/pulitzer-prize-fiction-all-the-light-we-cannot-see-anthony-doerr Photograph: Shauna Doerr/AP Photograph: Shauna Doerr/AP Alison Flood 2015-04-21T10:49:00Z Three female critics nominated for Pulitzer prize https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/apr/21/three-female-critics-nominated-for-pulitzer-prize-mcnamara-dargis-zacharek <p>Mary McNamara of the LA Times took the top honour, over film critics Stephanie Zacharek of the Village Voice and Manohla Dargis of the New York Times</p><p>LA Times writer Mary McNamara has won the Pulitzer prize for criticism. </p><p>The prize, which carries a reward of $10,000, is designed to promote the best of newspaper and online arts writing.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/apr/21/three-female-critics-nominated-for-pulitzer-prize-mcnamara-dargis-zacharek">Continue reading...</a> Film criticism Film Culture Media Television Television & radio Pulitzer prize Awards and prizes New York Times US press and publishing Newspapers Newspapers & magazines Tue, 21 Apr 2015 08:52:50 GMT http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/apr/21/three-female-critics-nominated-for-pulitzer-prize-mcnamara-dargis-zacharek Photograph: PULITZER BOARD / HO/EPA Photograph: PULITZER BOARD / HO/EPA Henry Barnes 2015-04-21T08:52:50Z 2015 Pulitzer prizes: local newspapers win for Ferguson and domestic violence coverage https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/apr/20/pulitzer-prizes-south-carolina-newspaper-domestic-violence-coverage <p>Post and Courier based in Charleston wins public service award, while St Louis Post-Dispatch takes home breaking news photography for Ferguson images</p><p>The Pulitzer prize for public service, the highest accolade in US journalism announced on Monday, has been awarded to the Post and Courier, a South Carolina-based newspaper, for its investigation into the high number of female deaths from domestic violence in the state. </p><p> The award’s panel said the Post and Courier’s seven-part series, <a href="http://www.postandcourier.com/tilldeath/title.html">Till Death Do Us Part</a>, “probed why South Carolina is among the deadliest states in the union for women and put the issue of what to do about it on the state’s agenda”. The series revealed failures by the state in stopping the violence, and inspired lawmakers there to enact reforms to the state’s domestic violence laws.</p><p>The Post and Courier wins Pulitzer Prize for domestic violence series <a href="http://t.co/jhOhWM12U5">http://t.co/jhOhWM12U5</a> <a href="http://t.co/gItJGJ05zK">pic.twitter.com/gItJGJ05zK</a></p><p>I'm so proud of our awesome photography staff. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Ferguson?src=hash">#Ferguson</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/pulitzer2015?src=hash">#pulitzer2015</a> <a href="http://t.co/tZIJe1PbJN">pic.twitter.com/tZIJe1PbJN</a></p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/apr/20/pulitzer-prizes-south-carolina-newspaper-domestic-violence-coverage">Continue reading...</a> US press and publishing Media Newspapers Newspapers & magazines US news New York Times Pulitzer prize Mon, 20 Apr 2015 21:01:28 GMT http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/apr/20/pulitzer-prizes-south-carolina-newspaper-domestic-violence-coverage Photograph: David Carson/Polaris/eyevine Photograph: David Carson/Polaris/eyevine Lauren Gambino in New York 2015-04-20T21:01:28Z
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