Finalists have been named for the £10,000 (US$15,976) Guardian First Book Award. "It's a very exciting list," said Lisa Allardice, Guardian review editor and chair of judges. "Across fiction and nonfiction, it crosses the globe and addresses many of the major issues of the day." The winner will be announced November 29. The shortlisted titles are:
The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers
Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-cream Float Before He Stole My Ma by Kerry Hudson
The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
Sandstorm by Lindsey Hilsum
Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo
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Jérôme Ferrari won France's Prix Goncourt for his novel Le Sermon sur la Chute de Rome (The Sermon on the Fall of Rome), CBC news reported. The jury praised Le Sermon as a "fine parable on contemporary hopelessness, but with a hopeful message: the end of a world doesn't have to spell the end of the world."
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Winners of the Prix Médicis were named earlier this week, Literary Saloon reported. The French prize went to Féerie générale by Emmanuelle Pireyre; the foreign prize to Rétrospective by A.B. Yehoshua; and the essai prize to Congo by David van Reybrouck.
