An occasional round up of miscellaneous bookish news you may have missed (and often I missed them too)
Prize for African literature announced
I was so focused on the announcement of the Man Booker Prize long list that I overlooked an announcement about the lesser known Caine Prize for African Writing. This has been running since 2005 and commemorates Sir Michael Caine, the former Chairman of Booker plc who chaired the Booker Prize management committee for almost 25 years. The award celebrates the short story format and is open to writers of African origin . This year’s winner is Okwiri Oduor from Kenya with My Father’s Head, a story about loss and memory as a women working in comes to terms with her father’s death. You can read the winning story and the shortlisted entries on the Caine Prize website. If you prefer to listen rather than read, they are all available as podcasts – click here to get the details.
How far would you travel to get to a Book Club?
There is a person featured in this article who travels 100 kilometres every two weeks just so he can participate in his club. Makes me feel guilty now about all the meetings I missed at the book club which is just 8 miles down the road from my home.
A boost for world literature
Ever since I started my world literature project, I’ve been bemoaning the lack of availability of books by authors from outside the western world. From Los Angeles comes news of a new publisher that is taking some small steps to rectify this. Unnamed Press has made its mission to publish new, international authors who may not fit into the traditional mould. So far they have published works from Estonian, Bangladeshi and Mexican writers. If only the larger companies could follow suit.