Awards: Dylan Thomas; Strand Critics; Nicholas Schaffner

In Our Mad and Furious City by Guy Gunaratne has won the the £30,000 (about $38,160) International Dylan Thomas Prize, which is sponsored by Swansea University and recognizes the "best published literary work in the English language, written by an author aged 39 or under."

Organizers said that the novel "burst into our consciousness in 2018 providing an urgent, timely and compelling fictional account of 48 hours in an East London housing estate after the murder of a British soldier, as told through three narrators. Risky and inventive, Gunaratne has been lauded for providing an authentic voice to marginalised sectors of society and for shining a spotlight on the very real experiences of youths from minority ethnic backgrounds."

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The Strand Magazine has unveiled nominees for the 2019 Strand Critics Awards, which recognize excellence in the field of mystery fiction and publishing. In addition Heather Graham and Donna Leon are receiving Lifetime Achievement Awards.

Sourcebooks CEO and publisher Dominique Raccah is being honored with the Publisher of the Year Award. Strand managing editor Andrew Gulli commented: "One of the things we're looking for is a publisher that is innovative and at the same sticks with the some of the tried and true formulas of success. For the past few years, when it's come to the category of mysteries and thrillers, Dominique and the team at Sourcebooks have made a huge impact on the industry and in an ever-competitive and ever-changing world of publishing, from my personal experience I can say that every author published by Sourcebooks is a happy author."

This year's Strand Critics Awards nominated titles are:

Mystery Novel
Lullaby Road by James Anderson (Crown)
Transcription by Kate Atkinson (Little, Brown)
November Road by Lou Berney (Morrow)
Dark Sacred Night by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown)
The Witch Elm by Tana French (Viking)
Sun Burn by Laura Lippman (HarperCollins)

Debut Novel
Dodging and Burning by John Copenhaver (Pegasus)
Star of the North by D.B. John (Crown)
The Other Side of Everything by Lauren Doyle Owens (Touchstone)
The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton (Sourcebooks Landmark)
Beautiful Bad by Annie Ward (Park Row Books)

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James Gallant, author of the story collection La Leona and Other Guitar Stories, has won the sixth annual Nicholas Schaffner Award for Music in Literature. As a result, the book will be published by Schaffner Press in 2020. The award is presented annually to a work of fiction, nonfiction or poetry that deals in some way with the subject of music and its influence, and it celebrates the life of publisher Tim Schaffner's brother Nicholas, who was a poet, musician, biographer and music critic.

Schaffner commented: "James Gallant's highly imaginative story collection provides a kaleidoscopic journey through the evolution of the classical guitar and guitar music as backdrop to the hurly-burly of western cultural history that includes whimsical cameos of such historical characters as Shakespeare, Walt Whitman and Jean-Paul Marat. Along the way, readers discover the origins of the troubadours, the guitar's evolution, and the secrets of the luthier's craft. In a style that is reminiscent of Jorge Luis Borges, Italo Calvino and Peter Cameron, these fictions make twists and turns as surprising and delightful as the music Mr. Gallant celebrates."

Gallant plays classical guitar and is the author of Verisimilitudes: essays and approximations, The Big Bust at Tyrone's Rooming House: A Novel of Atlanta, and Whatever Happened to Ohio?

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