Let the American Salvage Spin

Finalists for the National Book Award were announced Wednesday.  

Fiction nominees are:

American Salvage -  story collection by Bonnie Jo Campbell

Let the Great World Spin -  Colum McCann

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders -  stories by Daniyal Mueenuddin

Lark & Termite -  Jayne Anne Phillips

Far North -  Marcel Theroux (son of Paul Theroux)

The finalists in young people's literature are:

Claudette Colvin -  by Phillip Hoose

Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith -  Deborah Seligman

Stitches -  David Small

Lips Touch - Laini Taylor

Jumped -  Rita Williams-Garcia

Poetry nominees are:

Versed -  Rae Armanytrout

Open Interval -  Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon

Or to Begin Again -  Ann Lauterbach

Speak Low -  Carl Phillips 

Keith Waldrop -  Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy

The winner in each category will be known November 18 in New York and will get $10,000.

Gore Vidal and Dave Eggers are honorary awardees.  

A Passport on One Leg

Herta Mueller, 56, was tapped Thursday to receive this year's Nobel Prize in Literature.

Many observers believe her selection is in accordance with the commemoration of the 20th anniversay of the fall of communism, although Peter Englund denies this. Englund is the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy.

The prizes have been given to European writers in the last three years. 

Last year Horace Engdahl said Europe remains the literary center of the world and that American writers are not at par with them.

This year Englund has said he thinks the Academy finds it easier to pick European authors because the Academy is comprised of Europeans, and therefore share the same sensibilities. Mueller was born in Romania, and she and her husband emigrated to Germany in 1987. 

Mueller is the 10th German to receive the prize, the latest being Gunter Grass in 1999. Her body of work is mostly in German, but there have been translations in English, Spanish, and French.

Mueller began in 1982 with "Niederungen" (Nadirs), a short-story collection. Her most recent novel, "Atemschaukel" (Swinging Breath) is in contention for the German Book Prize tomorrow. It would be interesting to see how it fares.

Mueller is also the 12th woman to cop the Nobel in this category, the latest being Doris Lessing in 2007 .  This year marks the first time four women have taken the Nobel in the same year, with two of them from the United States and another one from Israel.

The Nobel Prize in Literature includes 10 million kronor (equivalent to $1.4 million), and will be awarded December 10 in Stockholm.

Mantel's Mantel

Hilary Mantel's "Wolf Hall" has won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction on Tuesday.

Mantel, 57, has written film criticism, a memoir, novels, and short stories. Her novel "Beyond Black" (2005), was a finalist in the races for the Orange Prize for Fiction and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize.

The prize comes with 50,000 pounds (or $80,000). Last year's recipient was "The White Tiger" by Aravind Adiga.

The Collected Fiction of NBA

Organizers of the National Book Awards want to know the best fiction in their 60 years.

On Monday the finalists were announced:

Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man" 

Thomas Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow"

"The Stories of John Cheever"

"Collected Stories" by William Faulkner

"The Complete Stories" by Flannery O'Connor

"The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty"

The American public may vote online up to October 21. 

The Quickening Race

Finalists in the Man Booker Prize were announced Tuesday. 

They are:

A.S. Byatt- for "The Children's Book"

J.M. Coetzee- for "Summertime"

Adam Foulds- for "The Quickening Maze"

Hilary Mantel- for "Wolf Hall"

Simon Mawer- for "The Glass Room"

Sarah Waters- for "The Little Stranger"

Byatt received the award for "Possession" in 1990. Coetzee has won the award twice previously, for "Life & Times of Michael K" (1983) and "Disgrace" (1999). If he wins again this year, he will be the first to win the Booker thrice. Reportedly, though, the favorite is Mantel. All the finalists are British, aside from Coetzee.

The chair of the judging panel this year is journalist James Naughtie. The winner will be known on October 6.

The prize comes with 50,000 pounds ($82,000). To be considered for the award, the writer must be from Britain, Ireland, or the Commonwealth of former British colonies. The awards started in 1969.

Is There Gonna Be Cake?

Organizers of the Thurber Prize for American Humor announced Wednesday the finalists for the prize. 

They are:

Sloane Crosley- for "I Was Told There'd Be Cake"

Ian Frazier- for "Lamentations of the Father"

Don Lee- for "Wrack and Ruin"

Laurie Notaro- for "The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death"

The prize will be awarded in October and it  comes with $5,000. Frazier won in the year the prize was founded (for "Coyote vs. Acme," 1997).

Duffy, the poet/slayer

Carol Ann Duffy, 53, was selected Friday as the British poet laureate, the first woman to hold the job.

She is also the first openly gay poet laureate, and evidently she is taught in schools.

The laureate is expected to write about major royal and state occasions, such as weddings and funerals.  Previous poets who filled the post included Alfred Lord Tennyson, William Wordsworth, Ted Hughes and John Dryden. Her annual salary would be 5,700 pounds. She says she intends to donate it to the Poetry Society.

American Pastor

The American writer Philip Roth celebrates his 76th birthday today. 

He has won three PEN/ Faulkner Awards: for Operation Shylock, The Human Stain, and Everyman.

He has received two National Book Awards: for Goodbye, Columbus, and Sabbath's Theater.

He got a Pulitzer Prize (for American Pastoral) and a National Book Critics Circle award (for The Counterlife). 

Several others were awards finalists.

In 2006 The New York Times Book Review released the results of their poll of the best American fiction in the last 25 years. Of 22 books, six were his: American Pastoral, The Counterlife, The Human Stain, Operation Shylock, The Plot Against America, and Sabbath's Theater.

The critic Harold Bloom ranks him alongside Don DeLillo, Cormac McCarthy, and Thomas Pynchon as the best American novelists of our time.

Novels of Interest

"Netherland" by Joseph O'Neill won the PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction on February 26. The finalists were "Serena" by Ron Rash; "Lush Life" by Richard Price; "A Person of Interest" by Susan Choi; and "Ms. Hempel Chronicles" by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum. The award comes with $15,000.

On March 12 the National Book Critics Circle chose to give their prize to "2666" by Roberto Bolano. Bolano was an author from Chile who died in 2003. The book's translator, Natasha Wimmer, received the award in his behalf.

The prize for criticism went to "Children's Literature" by Seth Lerer. The awards, though, do not come with cash.

They gave the lifetime achievement award to the American center of PEN. Yes, PEN.