News Latest!! The Impac Award Longlist for 2011 is out. See http://tiny.cc/7b4gu for an exhausting and exhaustive reading list for the next five months because that's how long you have to wait for the short list! April 12th to be exact.
There are 162 titles on the list and yet they still managed to miss Tom McCarthy's 'C'. My sorrow is immense. However, there are some goodies like Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin. The Irish Times are tipping The Vagrants [Yiyun Li] and Red April [Santiago Roncagliolo].
Other titles that are deservedly there include Homer & Langley [E.L. Doctorow] - a charming tale of two brothers in the early part of the twentieth century in New York, one of whom loses the plot on his return from the lst WW. Not surprisingly, JM Coetzee is listed for Summertime and of course, Orhan Pamuk for The Museum of Innocence. But, to my surprise and utter delight, so too is Javier Marias for Your Face Tomorrow: Poison, Shadow and Farewell. Marias is hugely popular in Spain and one of the best contemporary European authors. This title is the third volume in a spy trilogy in which the protagonist, Deza, a Spanish academic, is spending time in London and Oxford and gets drawn into a labyrinthine web of intrigue. It is an extraordinary narrative, gripping and intellectual and completely fascinating.
Apart from Colum McCann, there are three other Irish authors - William Trevor, Colm Toibin and Peter Murphy. The latter's book, John the Revelator has to be one of this year's most impressive debut novels.
Check out the list: I still am and will give you some reviews over the coming weeks!
No comments:
Post a Comment