Richard Lloyd Parry won the £20,000 (about $27,085) Rathbones Folio Prize, which honors "the best work of literature of the year, regardless of form," for Ghosts of the Tsunami: Death and Life in Japan's Disaster Zone.
The judges said: "From a shortlist of eight powerful, moving, important books, we have selected Ghosts of the Tsunami by Richard Lloyd Parry as our winner. It is a piece of heightened reportage about the 2011 Japanese earthquake and its devastating aftermaths, rendered as great literature. It is both harrowing and inspiring. Here is a book which not only interprets for a non-Japanese reader the subtleties and complexities of that nation's life, especially its family life and how it copes with grief, but also has the depth and reach to close the gaps between other nations, other cultures. Read it and you will be changed for the better."
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Isabel Fargo Cole has won the $10,000 Helen & Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize for her translation of Old Rendering Plant by Wolfgang Hilbig (Two Lines Press).
The jury commented: "Hilbig, who grew up in the German Democratic Republic and later moved to the West, has his narrator reflect on dark childhood memories over one extended monologue. While the text itself is brief, the challenges of rendering this Rendering are daunting. Isabel Fargo Cole's superb translation rises to the myriad challenges with stylistic pyrotechnics: alliterations and assonances, wordplay of all kinds, and inventive phrasings that capture the text's lyrical and sensual qualities."
Born in the U.S. and living in Berlin, Isabel Fargo Cole is a writer and translator whose translations include Boys and Murderers by Hermann Ungar (Twisted Spoon Press, 2006), All the Roads Are Open by Annemarie Schwarzenbach (Seagull Books, 2011)and several books by Wolfgang Hilbig, including The Tidings of the Trees (Two Lines Press), which appears on June 12. In 2013, she received a PEN/Heim Translation Grant to translate Franz Fühmann's At the Burning Abyss, and her translation of Fühmann's The Jew Car was shortlisted for the Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize.
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A "varied and hugely interesting" shortlist has been released for the £10,000 (about $13,525) Deborah Rogers Writers' Award, which recognizes "a first-time writer whose work demonstrates literary talent but who needs support to complete their first book," the Bookseller reported. The winner will be announced May 16 in London This year's shortlisted authors are:
Dima Alzayat for Daughters of Manat & Other Stories
Deepa Anappara for Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line
Chris Connolly for The Speed of Light and How It Cannot Help Us