Wolf Hall wins Man Booker Prize

Hilary Mantel has won the £50,000 Man Booker Prize for Fiction for Wolf Hall.

Wolf Hall has been the bookies' favourite since the longlist was announced in July 2009.

Wolf Hall is set in the 1520s and tells the story of Thomas Cromwell's rise to prominence in the Tudor court. Hilary Mantel has been praised by critics for writing ‘a rich, absorbingly readable historical novel; she has made a significant shift in the way any of her readers interested in English history will henceforward think about Thomas Cromwell.'

James Naughtie, comments ‘Hilary Mantel has given us a thoroughly modern novel set in the 16th century. Wolf Hall has a vast narrative sweep that gleams on every page with luminous and mesmerising detail.

‘It probes the mysteries of power by examining and describing the meticulous dealings in Henry VIII's court, revealing in thrilling prose how politics and history is made by men and women.

‘In the words of Mantel's Thomas Cromwell, whose story this is, "the fate of peoples is made like this, two men in small rooms. Forget the coronations, the conclaves of cardinals, the pomp and processions. This is how the world changes." '

(from the Man Booker website: www.themanbookerprize.com )

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"The White Tiger" wins Man Booker Prize

Aravind Adiga has won the 40th Man Booker Prize for his debut novel The white tiger.

From the Man Booker website comes the following information about the winner.


Synopsis

Born in a village in heartland India, the son of a rickshaw puller, Balram is taken out of school by his family and put to work in a teashop. As he crushes coals and wipes tables, he nurses a dream of escape - of breaking away from the banks of Mother Ganga, into whose depths have seeped the remains of a hundred generations.

The White Tiger is a tale of two Indias. Balram’s journey from darkness of village life to the light of entrepreneurial success is utterly amoral, brilliantly irreverent, deeply endearing and altogether unforgettable.

Author Biography

Aravind Adiga was born in Madras in 1974 and was raised partly in Australia. He studied at Columbia and Oxford Universities. A former correspondent in India for TIME magazine, his articles have also appeared in publications like The Financial Times, The Independent, and The Sunday Times. He lives in Mumbai.


Click here for more info. on the Man Booker Prize.

Click here for the library catalogue.

2008 Man Booker shortlist announced

Last night the shortlist for the Man Booker Prize 2008 was announced.

The shortlisted novels are:

Aravind Adiga The White Tiger

Sebastian Barry The Secret Scripture

Amitav Ghosh Sea of Poppies

Linda Grant The Clothes on Their Backs

Philip Hensher The Northern Clemency

Steve Toltz A Fraction of the Whole - Australian Author

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Check the library catalogue here

To read more about the Man Booker prize click here

Man Booker Long List announced

The judges for the 2008 Man Booker Prize for Fiction have announced the longlist for this year's prize.

The longlist of 13 books, often referred to as the ‘Man Booker Dozen', was chosen from 112 entries; 103 were submitted for the prize and nine were called in by the judges.

The titles are:

• Aravind Adiga The White Tiger
• Gaynor Arnold Girl in a Blue Dress
  
• Sebastian Barry The Secret Scripture
  
• John Berger From A to X
• Michelle de Kretser The Lost Dog
• Amitav Ghosh Sea of Poppies
• Linda Grant The Clothes on Their Backs
• Mohammed Hanif A Case of Exploding Mangoes
  
• Philip Hensher The Northern Clemency
  
• Joseph O'Neill Netherland
  
• Salman Rushdie The Enchantress of Florence
  
• Tom Rob Smith Child 44
  
• Steve Toltz A Fraction of the Whole
  

Click here to check the library catalogue.

Click here for a list of previous winners.