Robert Weil, editor-in-chief and publishing director at Liveright, a division of Norton, has won the 2015 Friedrich Ulfers Prize, awarded annually to a publisher, writer, critic, translator or scholar who has championed the advancement of German-language literature in the United States. The prize is awarded by Deutsches Haus at New York University and endowed with a $5,000 grant by Friedrich Ulfers, an associate professor of German at NYU.
Weil has edited many literary translations of German writers, including multiple volumes by Joseph Roth, as well as works by Heinrich Böll, Wolfgang Koeppen, Bertolt Brecht, Franz Werfel, Fred Wander, Franz Kafka and Clemens J. Setz; nonfiction by Rüdiger Safranski and Alice Miller; poetry by Bertolt Brecht; and fairytales from the Brothers Grimm. Born in New York City, Weil was raised by a German-born father and a German-born mother who grew up in Sweden. He has lectured in the U.S. and Germany.
The prize will be awarded at the opening ceremony of the 2015 Festival Neue Literatur, which will be held in New York City February 19-22.
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Winners have been named in the five Costa Book Awards categories. Each author receives £5,000 (about $7,635) and is now eligible for the £30,000 ($45,810) Costa Book of the Year prize, which will be announced January 27. This year's Costa category winners are:
Novel: How to Be Both by Ali Smith
First novel: Elizabeth Is Missing by Emma Healey
Biography: H Is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
Poetry: My Family and Other Superheroes by Jonathan Edwards
Children's: Five Children on the Western Front by Kate Saunders
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Shortlists have been announced for the Paddy Power Political Book Awards 2015, the Bookseller reported. The winner of the political book of the year prize receives £10,000 (about $15,260), with £3,000 (about $4,581) prize going to the winner of the debut political book of the year category. Other awards will be given for biography, polemic, political history and political fiction, practical politics, satire & humor, and international affairs. Winners will be named January 28.