24 April 2022

The 2022 Crime Writers' Association (CWA) Dagger awards longlists have been revealed with Eliot Higgins, Abir Mukherjee, Denise Mina, Rahul Raina and Sarah Sultoon among the authors chosen. For the Gold Dagger, which is awarded for the crime novel of the year, Abir Mukherjee is longlisted for The Shadows of Men (Harvill Secker); for the ALCS Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction, which is awarded for the best non-fiction book on a crime-related theme, Eliot Higgins is longlisted for We Are Bellingcat (Bloomsbury); for the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger, which is awarded for blockbuster thrillers of the year, Denise Mina is longlisted for Rizzio (Berlinn); and for the John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger, which is awarded for the best crime novel by a first-time author, Rahul Raina is longlisted for How to Kidnap the Rich (Little, Brown) and Sarah Sultoon for The Source (Orenda Books).

Nominated by publishers and judged by industry professionals the Dagger Awards represent the best crime writing in the industry. The Crime Writers’ Association was founded in 1953 by John Creasey; its aim to support, promote and celebrate crime writers of both fictio...

21 April 2022

The Wolfson History Prize shortlist for 2022 has been unveiled, featuring Malcolm Gaskill, Clare Jackson and Alex von Tunzelman among the six authors appearing on the list. The shortlist includes Malcolm Gaskill for The Ruin of All Witches: Life and Death in the New World (Allen Lane), Clare Jackson for Devil-Land: England Under Siege, 1588-1688 (Allen Lane), and Alex von Tunzelman for Fallen Idols: Twelve Statues That Made History (Headline). 

The prize is awarded by the Wolfson Foundation, an independent charity that awards grants in the fields of science, health, heritage, humanities and the arts. This year, to mark the 50th anniversary of the prize, the winner will receive £50,000. Each of the shortlisted authors gets £5,000. 

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12 April 2022

Colm Tóibín and James Robertson have been shortlisted for the 2022 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, which celebrates outstanding historical novels published in the UK, Ireland and the Commonwealth. Four novels are now in contention for the £25,000 prize, with settings spanning from the 8th century BC up to the 1960s, and from all four nations of the United Kingdom to Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, Austria, the West Indies and the Punjab.

Colm Tóibín is shortlisted for his Rathbones Folio Prize-winning novel, The Magician (Viking), a fictionalised biography exploring the life and times of Thomas Mann, an exiled German Nobel winner; and James Robertson for News of the Dead (Hamish Hamilton), a novel revolving around a legend of a miracle-performing hermit and set in the rugged mountains of Scotland in three different time periods. Judges described Colm Tóibín's novel as "courageous" and "lyrical," and said "James Robertson is such a master at evoking landscape that we can hear the wind in the heather and smell the smoke of the peat fires."

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07 April 2022

Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk's epic novel The Books of Jacob (Fitzcarraldo Editions), which has been called her “magnum opus”, and took Jennifer Croft seven years to translate, is among six novels shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2022. The book follows the story of charismatic Jewish eighteenth-century mystic Jacob Frank and an Eastern Europe swept by new ideas. The judges said the book "weaves an epic tapestry from the bizarre, mundane and utterly unpredictable sweep of history as it is created moment by moment, crammed with a staggering cast of characters, places and historical events." They praised Jennifer Croft’s "lithe, elegant translation [for conveying] the novel’s delicate irony and its ethereal beauty." Olga Tokarczuk won the award in 2018 for her novel Flights, translated by Jennifer Croft. In the same year, Tokarczuk won the Nobel Prize in Literature, for what the Nobel Prize described as "a narrative imagination that with encyclopaedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life."

The International Booker is award each year to a single fiction book – either a novel or...

07 April 2022

Keith Ridgway has been shortlisted for the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction 2022, which includes an absorbing blend of books offering fresh takes on themes such as the intricacies of relationships, cultural identity and journeys of self-discovery. In A Shock (Picador), a clutch of more or less loosely connected characters appear, disappear and reappear. They are all of them on the fringes of London life, often clinging on – to sanity or solvency or a story – by their fingertips.

The awards – presented by the University since 1919 – are the only major British book prizes judged by literature scholars and students. Presented by the University of Edinburgh since 1919, they are the only major British book prizes judged by literature scholars and students.

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07 April 2022

The longlist for the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize 2022 has been revealed, and featured is Stephanie Sy-Quia's Amnion (Granta). Amnion is a contemporary lyric epic, journeying from the Philippines to Libya, through France, Spain, and the UK. This debut collection of poems questions keenly and urgently the roots of migration and colonialism, charting what it means to grow up in a family divided by geography, history and language.

First awarded in 2004, the premise and broad remit of the prize creates unique lists of outstanding works and authors that you would not usually find sitting side by side. Previous recipients of the prize have included RCW authors Aida Edemariam and Hisham Matar, and the 2022 RSL Ondaatje Prize Shortlist will be announced on Wednesday 20 April and the winner will be announced on 4 May at Two Temple Place.

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07 April 2022

Maddie Mortimer has been longlisted for The Desmond Elliott Prize 2022, awarded to the most outstanding novel of the past 12 months. She is longlisted for her debut novel of trauma and buried secrets, Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies (Picador), which is an audacious tour de force that is both heartwrenchingly moving and darkly funny, and centers on Lia and the shapeshifting malady that enters her body at the close of her life.

Peggy Hughes, executive director at the National Centre for Writing, which runs the award, said: "We’re delighted to announce a longlist that explores one of our most fundamental social needs, love, and the desire to take control of our own narratives, with many having themes of personal growth too. We’re looking forward to hearing Derek, Symeon and Lyndsey’s opinions on these captivating and thought-provoking debuts."

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05 April 2022

Olga Tokarczuk has been awarded the 2022 O. Henry Prize for her short story “Seams,” which is translated from the Polish by Jennifer Croft and is published in Freeman's. The O. Henry Prizes are the oldest major prize for short fiction in America and seek to provide a dazzling platform for modern short story writers at all points in their careers. This year works in translation have been considered for the second time and the prize have invited Valeria Luiselli as a guest editor. The twenty winners’ stories are collected and published annually by Anchor Books. 

The subjects of this year’s twenty winning stories are predictably varied, but many touch on the pandemic, love and loss, though there is also humor and their appeal is universally human. The 2021 Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers Award winner ’Pemi Aguda is also among this year's O Henry Prize winners for her short story “Breastmilk,” published in One Story.

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04 April 2022

Zadie Smith has received the Bodley Medal from Bodley’s Librarian Richard Ovenden – awarded to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the worlds in which the Bodleian is active including literature, culture, science and communication. Previous recipients of the Bodley Medal include Peter Carey (2012), Hilary Mantel (2013), Nicholas Hytner (2014), Ian McEwan (2015), Professor Mary Beard (2016), William Boyd (2017), Claire Tomalin (2018) and Kazuo Ishiguro (2019). Zadie Smith said, "I am a novelist. Curiosity about consciousness is my practice."

Author Zadie Smith is also this year's winner of the PEN/Audible Literary Service Award, an honor previously given to Toni Morrison, Stephen Sondheim and Margaret Atwood among others. The PEN literary award is presented to “an important writer whose work has drawn a wide audience and who helps us understand the human condition in original and powerful ways.”

At the Critics Circle Theatre Awards 2022, Zadie Smith and Igor Memic were joint winners of the Most Promising Playwright award. Although famed as a best-selling novelist, Smith counted as a “newcomer” for the Critics’ Circle because The Wife of Willesde...