Canada Gets Women's Writing Prize

Canadians will get their very own Orange Prize. Born of a panel at the Vancouver's Writers Fest, the Rosalind Prize for Fiction will celebrate women writers in Canada. Janice Zawerbny is the midwife, taking a conversation about the state of women's writing in Canada and putting it into action, with the first prize to be awarded in 2014. Read more thoughts on the Orange and Rosalind prizes at Pickle Me This, where Kerry also provides links to her own thoughts about gender inequity in Canadian writing and awards.

Good News About the Orange

One of my favourite literary prizes is - or was - the Orange Prize for Fiction. It's not that I don't like the award anymore, it's that Orange, a mobile phone company, pulled its sponsorship last year. 2012's winner Madeline Miller will be the last winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction. However, private donors have saved the award for 2013. It is rebranded the Women's Prize for Fiction, its original title before Orange stepped in, and will hopefully have a corporate sponsor for 2014. Good news for award buffs!

Read The Guardian's article about the award here.

Orange Prize Winner

The 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction went to Madeline Miller for The Song of Achilles. The story is a retelling of the story of Achilles and Patroclus, recasting them as lovers. Miller is a first time novelist and wrote the book using her expertise in Greek and Roman mythology.

The award is a bit of a surprise, given that it is a debut novel and the fact that it was up against a few heavyweights in Ann Patchett, Anne Enright and Canadian 2011 awards darling Esi Edugyan. But, it must be good as well as interesting and challenging to have prevailed. I look forward to reading it!

Read more about the announcement here and here.

Orange Prize for Fiction Roundup

The Orange Prize for Fiction shortlist was announced on April 17th. Esi Edugyan’s Half-Blood Blues, which won the Giller, and Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder are nominated, and I feel strongly that these two are favourites for the Prize. The other nominees are Anne Enright for The Forgotten Waltz, Cynthia Ozick for Foreign Bodies, Madeline Miller for The Song of Achilles and Georgina Harding for Painter of Silence.

It is a talented field: Patchett has already won the award, in 2002 for Bel Canto, Enright is a Booker winner (2007’s The Gathering), Half-Blood Blues has been nominated for myriad prizes this year, and Ozick is an American octogenarian with many accolades to her name. The dark horse pick is The Song of Achilles. Miller’s debut novel is a sweeping retelling of The Iliad, repositioning Achilles and Patroclus as lovers. Finally, Harding is an unknown to me, since her book is not available here yet, and I’ve not heard of her previously. It could be great! I have no idea.

If I had to guess, I would say State of Wonder is the likely winner, though I would not be surprised if it went to Edugyan, Enright, or Ozick. 

The winner will be announced on May 30th, 2012. 

Review: The Tiger's Wife

The Tiger’s Wife is a beautiful tale of a young woman searching for answers about her grandfather’s death.

Living in a war-torn Balkan country, Natalia is continually aware of the changing borders, ethnic distinctions, and familial loyalties that tie everyone to everyone else - inextricably linked by war, tradition, and, finally, death. She travels across the new border with her colleague to deliver medicine to a small village orphanage, when she learns of her grandfather’s death.

She is a doctor, like her grandfather, and a humanitarian - she does the right thing but for herself, not for anyone else. She tells her grandfather’s story by telling his stories - that of the deathless man and that of the tiger’s wife. He tells her pieces of each story at different points of her life, so that the stories are not only about him, but about her, too. They are now part of her story. And so her grandfather’s story is a folktale, told to teach others how to live. The reader is aware that someday Natalia’s story will be told to her grandchildren.

Obreht tells tales that are traditional folktale - the tiger’s wife, the deathless man - but also creates new ones: the tireless doctor, the new healers. And who will rebuild the country after war has run its course? The new generation will, supported by knowledge of the past, tying the traditional tales of old, of magic and death and hope, to new stories, of border guards and doctors and orphans and monks, to create a story of a new country, or countries.

The Tiger’s Wife isn’t supposed to be political, it is supposed to be personal. After all, Obreht is a young American writer, not Balkan. But her roots are there, just as Natalia’s, and the story she tells is one of growth after immense tragedy. Tim at Baby Got Books puts that sentiment very well in his review:

The idea of storytelling as a means to make sense of the chaos in the world around us is a central theme of this novel. Reading The Tiger’s Wife, I was reminded of a reading that I attended by Aleksandar Hemon, another author from the former Yugoslavia. As a way of explaining to a US audience just how much turmoil the region has experienced, Hemon noted that none of his recent ancestors had died in the same country that they were born in – most of them had not moved. Clearly that kind of turmoil can create emotional havoc. Stories and fables, Obreht seems to suggest, are essential not just for understanding, but also for survival.

This is an excellent read, and well deserving of the 2011 Orange Prize for Fiction. As well, I predict that it will go far into this year’s Tournament of Books. Five escaped tigers out of five.

February's Pick: The Tiger's Wife

February's selection is The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht. Not only was it the winner of the Orange Prize in 2011, it is a contender for the coveted Tournament of Books. Obreht's novel is a story of "family legend, loss, and love":

"In a Balkan country mending from years of conflict, Natalia, a young doctor, arrives on a mission of mercy at an orphanage by the sea. By the time she and her lifelong friend Zóra begin to inoculate the children there, she feels age-old superstitions and secrets gathering everywhere around her. Secrets her outwardly cheerful hosts have chosen not to tell her. Secrets involving the strange family digging for something in the surrounding vineyards. Secrets hidden in the landscape itself."

(read more at Powell's Books)

This should be an interesting read, and not too long, which is good, because I am aiming to read the majority of the books in this year's tournament (sorry 1Q84, you won't make the cut!). So far I have read 6 of the sixteen books in contention - The Tiger's Wife will be the seventh, and I am on schedule to read 4-5 more, bringing my total to 12 of the 16, which isn't bad at all. Read along with me if you dare! But definitely read The Tiger's Wife. Look for a post at the end of the month with my review.

Margaret Atwood wins $1M Prize

Margaret Atwood has been named one of this year's recipients of the Dan David Prize, an annual award that "recognizes and encourages innovative and interdisciplinary research that cuts across traditional boundaries and paradigms. It aims to foster universal values of excellence, creativity, justice, democracy and progress and to promote the scientific, technological and humanistic achievements that advance and improve our world." And yes, it is worth 1 million dollars. I am not surprised that she had won this award, but I am surprised at the reason why: "Her work enabled, for the first time, the emergence of a defined Canadian identity, while exploring both national and transnational issues, such as colonization, feminism, structures of political power and oppression, and the violation and exploitation of nature." I can't disagree with this synopsis of her career, but I am shocked that another country has recognized the fact that defining "Canadian identity" is a whole lot of work and has only just happened in our lifetime. We all know it's true - look at the Nobel Prize winners for literature, for example. Not a single Canadian. While the Man Booker and Orange Prizes have recognized Canadians a little more frequently, we are still relatively unknown on the world literature stage. So, for Ms. Atwood to be honoured for her work in conveying messages of feminism, ecology, and "political power and oppression," is perfectly understandable. But to be also honoured for her role in constructing a Canadian identity through literature, that is a welcome surprise.