Sep 072011
 

本年度布克奖(Man Booker Prize)短名单公布。英国作家朱利安·巴恩斯(Julian Barnes)凭借其小说《终结感》(The Sense of an Ending)第四次入围。另外的5位入围者分别为史蒂芬·凯尔曼(Stephen Kelman),艾迪·米勒( AD Miller),卡罗尔·帕奇(Carol Birch),帕特里克·德维特(Patrick deWitt)和埃斯·埃杜基(Esi Edugy)。

【以下是来自BBC的相关报道

Bookies’ favourite Julian Barnes is among six authors featured on this year’s Man Booker Prize shortlist.

It is the fourth time Barnes has been shortlisted for the Booker

Bookmaker William Hill has put Barnes at 6-4 to win for his novel The Sense of an Ending.

Stephen Kelman, AD Miller, Carol Birch, Patrick deWitt and Esi Edugyan have also made it onto the shortlist.

The winner of the £50,000 annual prize – won last year by Howard Jacobson’s The Finkler Question – will be announced on 18 October.

Ladbrokes also named Barnes as favourite to win at 13-8 and made Birch second favourite at 7/2, as did William Hill.

Alan Hollinghurst, whose novel The Stranger’s Child had been second favourite to win, did not make the shortlist.

“Inevitably it was hard to whittle down the longlist to six titles,” said former MI5 chief Dame Stella Rimington, chair of this year’s judging panel.

“We were sorry to lose some great books. But, when push came to shove, we quickly agreed that these six very different titles were the best.”

Writer and journalist Matthew d’Ancona, author Susan Hill, author and politician Chris Mullin and Gaby Wood of the Telegraph are her fellow jurors.

Barnes has been shortlisted for the prize on three previous occasions, without success.

The 65-year-old was nominated in 1984 for Flaubert’s Parrot, in 1998 for England, England and in 2005 for Arthur and George.

This year’s shortlist contains two debut novelists – Miller and Kelman – as well as two women – Edugyan and Birch, who made the longlist for Turn Again Home in 2003.

Two of the authors are Canadian – Edugyan and deWitt – while the other four are British. Four of the novels are from independent publishers.

Kelman’s debut novel tells the story of an 11-year-old who, with his mother and sister, moves from Ghana to a rough London estate.

Booker judge Chris Mullin read 138 books before his panel whittled down the shortlist

Pigeon English follows him and a friend as they investigate the murder of a local boy who has been knifed to death.

Miller’s thriller Snowdrops, which reveals the dark underbelly of Moscow, was inspired by his time spent living in Russia.

Barnes’s novel has a middle-aged man reflecting on the paths he and his childhood friends have taken as the past catches up with him.

Edugyan’s Half-Blood Blues begins in 1930s Berlin with a jazz musician going missing as the Nazis take over the streets.

The Sisters Brothers, deWitt’s second novel, is set against the backdrop of the 1850s Californian gold rush and is believed to be the first Western novel to feature on the shortlist.

Birch’s novel, Jamrach’s Menagerie, derives from a real-life incident – the sinking of the whale-ship Essex in 1820.

The competition is only open to those from the British Commonwealth and Ireland.

Aug 272011
 

Playwright Sir David Hare has been awarded this year’s Pen/Pinter Prize, it has been announced.

Sir David is known for his gritty portrayals of contemporary Britain

The award, set up by the writers’ charity Pen in memory of playwright Harold Pinter, is given to a British writer who casts an “unflinching, unswerving” gaze upon the world.

Pinter’s widow, Lady Antonia Fraser, said Sir David was a “worthy winner”.

He will be presented with his prize on 10 October at the British Library.

The award will be shared with an imprisoned “writer of courage” who has been persecuted for speaking out about their beliefs, to be announced at the event.

Lady Antonia said: “In the course of his long, distinguished career, David Hare has never failed to speak out fearlessly on the subject of politics in the broadest sense.

“This courage, combined with his rich creative talent, makes him a worthy winner of the Pen/Pinter Prize”.

Known for his gritty portrayals of contemporary Britain, Sir David’s notable works include Plenty, a portrait of disillusionment in post-war Britain, and The Absence of War, a drama about the Labour Party.

He was nominated for Oscars for The Hours, in 2003, and for Kate Winslet drama The Reader, in 2008.

Aug 222011
 

Debut novelist Tatjani Soli has been announced as the winner of Britain’s oldest literary award.

Tatjani Soli won the prize for her debut novel The Lotus Eaters

The James Tait Black Memorial awards are given to one work of fiction and one work of biography each year.

Theatre critic Hilary Spurling claimed the biography prize for her book Burying the Bones: Pearl Buck in China.

American author Tatjani Soli won the fiction prize for her first novel The Lotus Eaters, which is set in the final days of the Vietnam War.

Previous winners include Ian McEwan, Cormac McCarthy and A S Byatt.

The winners of the prizes – awarded annually by the University of Edinburgh – were announced at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

They are the only major British book awards judged by scholars and students of literature.

Also shortlisted for the £10,000 fiction prize this year were debut novelists Julie Orringer and Michael Nath, and acclaimed writer David Mitchell.

The biography shortlist included studies of Henry Ford by Greg Grandin, of EM Forster by Wendy Moffat and an autobiography by renowned Scottish author Alisdair Gray.

The James Tait Black Prizes were founded in 1919 by Janet Coats, the widow of publisher James Tait Black, to commemorate her husband’s love of books.

【资料来源:BBC新闻

Jul 202011
 

理查德·阿尔丁顿(Richard Aldington, 1892-1962),英国小说家、诗人、批评家、传记作家。以下是有关他的一些零散信息:

  •  Brigit Patmore (1882-1965) was an English writer and “literary hostess”. She was married to the grandson of Coventry Patmore. She had a long friendship with D.H. Lawrence, of whom she wrote several accounts. She was the model for Clariss Browning in Lawrence’s novel, “Aaron’s Rod”. She was also friends with Ezra Pound, Richard Aldington, H.D., Ford Hueffer and W.B. Yeats. 【补充一下,这位帕特慕夫人对阿尔丁顿非常重要,因为是她将他引入当时伦敦的文学圈子,使他有机会结识了那些先锋派文学作家。】
  •  理查德·阿尔丁顿和H. D. 几乎是一见钟情。他们是在庞德的引荐下认识的。据说庞德一直对HD有点那啥。甚至在阿尔丁顿和HD结婚之后,庞德对HD还是难以割舍。H. D. 和阿尔丁顿共同主持编撰当时意象派的杂志《自我主义者》(The Egoist)直到1917年。1915年,由于HD产下死胎,RA从此和HD分开。10多年后正式离婚。不过据说晚年的HD和RA又非常亲近。。。
  •  有部电影叫做《阿拉伯的劳伦斯》,所以知道了这个名字。并不知道这原来是一部小说。也曾以为这个劳伦斯就是D. H. 劳伦斯,后来知道不是那么回事儿。当然现在我知道了,Lawrence of Arabia《阿拉伯的劳伦斯》是阿尔丁顿的一部英雄传记,主人公是T. E. Lawrence,一位legendary hero。而且,当时这部作品遭到冷遇,至少有两家出版社拒绝接受它。阿尔丁顿也确实为D. H. 劳伦斯写过一部传记。他俩是特别好的朋友。。。
May 262011
 

1.英国小说家艾米娜塔·福尔纳的小说《爱的记忆》在悉尼获得英联邦作家奖最佳小说奖。

2.拉什迪的小说《午夜的孩子》改版的同名电影在斯里兰卡秘密拍摄完成……

3.尤多拉·薇尔蒂和威廉·马克斯维尔书信集

4. 讲述成功故事的励志小说也开始进入文学奖的候选名单了。

5. 杰弗利·迪弗的新作《卡特·布兰奇》被认为是诞生于21世纪的邦德故事,作者也被比作福莱明。新书发布会上还请来了邦德女郎

6. 以下五本书被美国独立书商选为最佳图书(Indie Booksellers Choice Awards):

Paolo Bacigalupi for The Windup Girl (Night Shade Books)
Adam Levin for The Instructions by (McSweeney’s)
Emily St. John Mandel for The Singer’s Gun (Unbridled)
Karl Marlantes for Matterhorn (Grove/Atlantic)
Nina Revoyr for Wingshooters (Akashic)

都是没听过的作者作品,但Melville出版社的创办人之一Dennis Johnson的一席话也许可以解释这种陌生的原因:

“The award grew out of my distaste for most literary prizes. The point is usually to laud some individual or book that doesn’t really need the stroking. We wanted to come up with something that would better support the ecosystem we live in. The IBCA is good for the author, good for the bookseller, and good for the publisher, and so it’s good for art and industry.”

【本条信息来源于 LILY’ blog