Runners up for the Story Prize were Victoria Patterson for Drift and Wells Tower for Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned. They received $5,000 each and also read from their collections and discussed their work at the ceremony.
The judges said that Mueenuddin's stories are written "with a deep sense of knowing; as though Mueenuddin's skin is a particular kind of porous; there is an ache, an inescapable constant melancholy, our masterful guide, knows too much, feels too deeply--if such a thing is possible. Each story, on its own, shines; layered together, there is a celebration of the beauty of the landscape, humor in the everyday, the irrefutable power of family and a lingering sadness for all who have not gotten quite what they wanted."
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Spewing Sparks as Big as Castles by Abdo Khal has won the 2010 International Prize for Arabic Fiction. The book was published last year by Al-Jamal Publications of Baghdad and Beirut. The author wins a total of $60,000.
The chair of judges, Kuwaiti writer Taleb Alrefai, called Spewing Sparks as Big as Castles "a brilliant exploration of the relationship between the individual and the state. Through the eyes of its two dimensional protagonist, the book gives the reader a taste of the horrifying reality of the excessive world of the palace."
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Winners of Barnes & Noble's Discover Great New Writers Awards:
Fiction:
First prize: Victor Ladato, for Mathilda Savitch (FSG)
Second prize: Barbara Johnson, for More of This World or Maybe Another (HarperPerennial)
Third prize: C.E. Morgan, for All the Living (FSG)
Nonfiction:
First prize: Dave Cullen, for Columbine (Twelve)
Second prize: Toby Lester, for The Fourth Part of the World (Free Press)
Third prize: Neil White, for In the Sanctuary of Outcasts (Morrow)