Awards: PEN Pinter; Stephen Leacock Humor

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has won the PEN Pinter Prize 2018 for her "refusal to be deterred or detained by the categories of others," the Bookseller reported. The prize honors a writer from Britain, Ireland or the Commonwealth who, as Pinter said in his Nobel speech, casts an "unflinching, unswerving" gaze upon the world, and shows a "fierce intellectual determination ... to define the real truth of our lives and our societies." She will be presented the award in October.

Author Antonia Fraser, one of the judges and Pinter's widow, commented: "Not only is Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie a brilliant, compelling writer but she embodies in herself those qualities of courage and outspokenness which Harold much admired."

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Jennifer Craig won the C$15,000 (about US$11,550) Stephen Leacock Medal for Humor, which honors the best book of humor written by a Canadian, for Gone to Pot. The other finalists, who each received C$1,500, were Laurie Gelman for Class Mom and Scaachi Koul for One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter.

After the announcement, Koul tweeted: "I lost!! But the formidable Jennifer Craig won!!!!!!!!!!!! Never forget that men are not funny, but Jennifer is." This was the first time since the Leacock Medal was first presented in 1947 that the three shortlisted writers were all female, Quill & Quire noted.

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