Comma strikes twice on Edge Hill shortlist

| Joshua Farrington

Small independent publisher Comma Press has had two titles shortlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize.

The books, by Adam Marek and Jane Rogers, are shortlisted alongside titles from Jonathan Cape, Pan Macmillan and Bloomsbury, which also has two nominations.

The award, now in its seventh year, is given for a published collection of short stories by a single author. The winner will be announced in a ceremony at Waterstones Piccadilly on 4th July.

Judges for this year’s prize are last year’s winner Sarah Hall, author Lesley McDowell and Waterstones regional buyer Jim Lee.

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Murakami and Houellebecq lead 2013 Impac award shortlist

Ten novelists in all are left in contention for the prestigious €100,000 prize.

By Alison Flood

Titans of international literature Haruki Murakami and Michel Houellebecq are going head-to-head on the shortlist for the €100,000 Impac award.

The Japanese and French favourites are two of 10 novelists in the final running for the International Impac Dublin award, with Murakami picked for surreal love story 1Q84, and Houellebecq for The Map and the Territory, which features the “celebrated novelist Michel Houellebecq” as a fictional character. The Impac is unique in that its longlist is voted for by libraries from around the world – Houellebecq received nominations from Barcelona and Berlin, and Murakami from South Africa, Ireland, the US and Germany – with a panel of judges selecting the shortlist and final winner.

This year’s line-up features the highest ever number of translated works, with Murakami and Houellebecq up against Icelandic star Sjón’s From the Mouth of the Whale, about an exiled poet, Dutch author Tommy Wieringa’s tale of a lonely musical prodigy Caesarion, and Norwegian debut novelist Kjersti Skomsvold’s The Faster I Walk, the Smaller I Am, in which a lonely old woman tries to make her mark on the world.

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Barry wins Sunday Times Short Story Award

| By Lisa Campbell

Kevin Barry’s story about a group of middle-aged men and their passion for authentic beer has been awarded the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award for 2012.

The Irish author was presented with a £30,000 cheque by author Joanna Trollope at a ceremony at the Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival on Friday (30th March).

Seeing off competition from Orange-prize listed The Sealed Letter author Emma Donoghue, Jean Kwok, Tom Lee, Robert Minhinnick and Linda Oatman High, Barry’s tale was described by judge Melvyn Bragg as a story which “takes a disregarded and often scorned stratum of male pals and finds wit, pathos and great energy.”

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