NEWS FLASH: Esi Edugyan in the Running for the Orange Prize

Photo: Chad Hipolito for The Globe and Mail

"Canadian author Esi Edugyan is among six finalists for Britain's Orange Prize for fiction by women. Ms. Edugyan’s Half Blood Blues, a Booker Prize finalist [and Giller winner] has been shortlisted for the prestigious award. Three American novelists are also among the six finalists.
     Organizers on Tuesday announced a shortlist that includes Cynthia Ozick's Foreign Bodies, Ann Patchett's State of Wonder and Madeleine Miller's debut The Song of Achilles."
— The Associated Press (via The Globe and Mail)
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"Former Orange prize winner Ann Patchett is in the running for the award once more. She was shortlisted alongside novels exploring subjects from adultery to ancient Greek love to wartime atrocities in Romania.
     Six novelists were named as contenders for the 17th annual award of a prize dedicated to excellence in fiction written by women.
     Three American writers were named: Patchett, Madeline Miller and Cynthia Ozick, who, at 84, is the oldest writer to have been shortlisted. There was one Briton, Georgina Harding, an Irish writer, Anne Enright, and the Canadian Esi Edugyan."
— Mark Brown, The Guardian
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Two Canadians in the running for the £25,000 Walter Scott Prize

"Canadian authors Patrick deWitt and Esi Edugyan, who last clashed on the Booker shortlist, are competing again for a literary award – this time for the £25,000 Walter Scott prize for historical fiction.
     The award, established by Scott's distant relatives the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch to honour the author's achievements, goes to the best piece of historical fiction of the last year, using Scott's subtitle for his own novel Waverley: Tis Sixty Years Since, for its definition of 'historical.' Judges, chaired by author and historian Alistair Moffat and including television presenter Kirsty Wark, are looking for 'the ability of a book to shed light on the present as well as the past,' they said, as well as for quality, originality and innovation.
     DeWitt is shortlisted for The Sisters Brothers, his story of hired killers on the American west coast in 1851, while Edugyan is up for the prize for her second novel [Giller Prize winner] Half Blood Blues, about the disappearance of the black German jazz trumpeter Hieronymous Falk during the second world war."
— Alison Flood, The Guardian
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Canadian Author Esi Edugyan Shortlisted for the Man Booker

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Alison Pick long-listed for the Man Booker

2011 Elora Writers' Festival reader Alison Pick is one of only thirteen authors from around the world selected for the 2011 Man Booker Prize long-list.

"The list of 13 nominees includes [Canadians] Alison Pick of Toronto, author of Far to Go; Vancouver-born Patrick deWitt, now living in Portland, Oregon, nominated for The Sisters Brothers; and Esi Edugyan of Victoria, author of Half Blood Blues."
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About Alison Pick's book Far to Go:

"[...] very deftly structured and the storytelling is seamless. [...] Far to Go appears poised to gain a wide and significant readership, and deservedly so."
- The Globe and Mail

"Weaving Czech history with a contemporary mystery, Far To Go shows terrific craft and emotional intelligence. A winner. " - NOW
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