Literary prize winners to read over summer
Looking for something to read during the holidays? Here are some of the biggest literary prize winners of the past year.
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2017
As the American Civil War rages, President Lincoln’s beloved 11-year-old son lies gravely ill. In a matter of days, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returns to the crypt several times alone to hold his boy’s body. From this seed of historical truth, Saunders spins an unforgettable story of familial love and loss that breaks free of realism, entering a thrilling, supernatural domain both hilarious and terrifying.
The Windy Season by Sam Carmody
Winner of the Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction 2017
A young fisherman is missing from the crayfish boats in the West Australian town of Stark. There’s no trace at all of Elliot, there hasn’t been for some weeks and Paul, his younger brother, is the only one who seems to be active in the search. Taking Elliot’s place on the boat skippered by their troubled cousin, Paul soon learns how many opportunities there are to get lost in those many thousands of kilometres of lonely coastline.
The Museum of Modern Love by Heather Rose
Winner of the Stella Prize 2017
Arky Levin is a film composer in New York separated from his wife, who has asked him to keep one devastating promise. One day he finds his way to The Atrium at MOMA and sees Marina Abramović in ‘The Artist is Present’. The performance continues for seventy-five days and, as it unfolds, so does Arky. As he watches and meets other people drawn to the exhibit, he slowly starts to understand what might be missing in his life and what he must do.
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction 2017
13-year-old Jojo and his younger sister Kayla live with their grandparents in rural Mississippi. When their father, a white man, is released from prison, their mother Leonie packs the children into her car with a friend, and together they set off to collect the man she loves with a toxic passion. Rich with Jesmyn Ward’s distinctive, lyrical language, Sing, Unburied, Sing brings the archetypal road novel into rural twenty-first century America.
The Dry by Jane Harper
Winner of the CWA Gold Dagger Award 2017
When a city cop returns to his rural Victorian hometown after an old friend dies, he is forced to stay and investigate the death while trying to avoid the cloud of his past hanging over him. This addictive literary thriller is an absolute staff favourite here at Readings, and also picked up numerous other awards on top the Gold Dagger, including the 2017 Ned Kelly Award for First Fiction and the 2017 Davitt Award for Adult Novels.
A Horse Walks into a Bar by David Grossman (translated by Jessica Cohen)
Winner of the Man Booker International Prize 2017
David Grossman’s award-winning novel is set around a standup comic’s rambling and confessional routine in an Israeli comedy club. Dovaleh Greenstein opens his performance with crude and painful jokes intended to offend his audience, and then slowly disintegrates as he reveals an event from his past that has haunted him for years.
How to Survive a Plague by David France
Winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize 2017
This is the riveting, powerful and profoundly moving story of the AIDS epidemic and the grass-roots movement of activists, many of them facing their own life-or-death struggles, who grabbed the reins of scientific research to help develop the drugs that turned HIV from a mostly fatal infection to a manageable disease. Around the globe, the 15.8 million people taking anti-AIDS drugs today are alive thanks to their efforts. Weaving together the stories of dozens of individuals, this is an insider’s account of a pivotal moment in our history and one that changed the way that medical science is practiced worldwide.
The Lost Pages by Marija Peričić
Winner of the Australian/Vogel’s Literary Award 2017
It is 1908, and Max Brod is the rising star of Prague’s literary world. Everything he desires – fame, respect, love – is finally within his reach. But when a rival appears on the scene, Max discovers how quickly he can lose everything he has worked so hard to attain. He knows that the newcomer, Franz Kafka, has the power to eclipse him for good, and he must decide to what lengths he will go to hold onto his success. In this inspired novel of friendship, fraud, madness and betrayal, Marija Peričić writes vividly and compellingly of an extraordinary literary rivalry.
The Power by Naomi Alderman
Winner of the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction 2017
Set in a future where women develop the ability to kill men with a touch, The Power is an electrifying page-turner that explores timely issues including gender politics, religion, violence and the corrupting influence of power. This truly is speculative fiction at its most ambitious and provocative, taking us on a thrilling journey to an alternate reality while exposing our own world.
Extinctions by Josephine Wilson
Winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award 2017
Professor Frederick Lothian has quarantined himself from life by moving to a retirement village. His wife, Martha, is dead and his two adult children are lost to him in their own ways. Determined to be miserable, he is nevertheless tired of the life he has chosen. When a series of unfortunate incidents forces him and his neighbour, Jan, together, he begins to realise the damage done by the accumulation of a lifetime’s secrets and lies, and to comprehend his own shortcomings.
Mend the Living by Maylis de Kerangal (translated by Jessica Moore)
Winner of the Wellcome Book Prize 2017
In the depths of a winter’s night, the heart of Simon Limbeau is resting, readying itself for the day to come. In a few hours’ time, Simon’s alarm will go off and he will venture into the freezing dawn, drive down to the beach, and go surfing with his friends. But today, his heart will encounter a very different course… This unusual french novel follows the the journey of a transplant organ in a powerful exploration of the metaphysical zone between life and death.
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2017 and the Arthur C Clarke Award 2017
In this astonishingly inventive work, Colson Whitehead recreates the unique terrors for black people in the pre-Civil War era as he tracks one woman’s ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage. This is a historical novel with a supernatural twist: the titular Underground Railroad is not a metaphor, but a real secret and magical network of tracks and tunnels built beneath the Southern soil.
The Return by Hisham Matar
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography 2017
Hisham Matar was 19 when his father was kidnapped and taken to prison in Libya. He would never see him again. 22 years later, the fall of Gaddafi meant he was finally able to return to his homeland. In this moving memoir, the author takes us on an illuminating journey, both physical and psychological; a journey to find his father and rediscover his country
LaRose by Louise Erdrich
National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction 2017
Louise Erdrich wields her breathtaking narrative magic in an emotionally haunting contemporary tale of a tragic accident, a demand for justice, and a profound act of atonement with ancient roots in Native American culture. When Landreaux accidentally kills the child of his best friend in a hunting accident he looks to his Indian forebears’ wisdom and decides that he will give his own son, LaRose, to the grieving parents.
The High Places by Fiona McFarlane
Winner of the International Dylan Thomas Prize 2017
Here are 14 exquisite and brilliantly inventive stories from a singular voice in Australian literature. Fiona McFarlane can sculpt a character with one telling observation, turn a story with a single line. Her proclivity for seeing the bizarre in the ordinary, her sense of mystery and wit, and her deftness with detail make her that prized thing – a seriously good writer who is also effortlessly readable.
The Bone Sparrow by Zana Fraillon
Winner of the Readings Young Adult Book Prize 2017 and the Amnesty CILIP Honour 2017
The Bone Sparrow takes us into the world of 10-year-old Subhi, a Rohingyar refugee born in an Australian detention centre. Subhi finds hope, curiosity and friendship in hopeless circumstances, but his optimism is challenged by worsening conditions in the camp. This is a novel that deserves to be read by all ages.
The Invisible War by Ailsa Wild, Briony Barr, Gregory Crocetti, Ben Huchings & Jeremy Barr
Winner of the Most Underrated Book Award 2017
This fascinating graphic novel about microbes is a one-of-a-kind publication, funded through a Pozible campaign, created by a team of writers, illustrators and scientists, and combining the format and narrative of a graphic novel with science education writing. The story opens in France, 1916. While treating a patient with dysentery, Sister Annie Barnaby encounters a strain of lethal bacteria. As the invaders journey deep into her gut, the resident microbes must fight to survive. Annie’s life hangs in the balance. Enter the phage, deadly predators, ready to wage war to protect their host.
A General Theory of Oblivion by José Eduardo Agualusa (translated by Daniel Hahn)
Winner of the International Dublin Literary Award 2017
On the eve of Angolan independence, Ludo bricks herself into her apartment, where she will remain for the next 30 years. She lives off vegetables and pigeons, burns her furniture and books to stay alive and keeps herself busy by writing her story on the walls of her home. The outside world intrudes on Ludo’s life in snippets, until the day a young boy appears on her terrace.
Can You Tolerate This? by Ashleigh Young
Winner of the Windham-Campbell Prize 2017
Can You Tolerate This? is the debut essay collection from New Zealand writer, Ashleigh Young. In these pieces, she ranges from preoccupation to preoccupation – the music scenes in regional New Zealand, family relations, eccentric characters, the desire for physical transformation – trying to find her way amid uncertainty.
Days Without End by Sebastian Barry
Winner of the Costa Book of the Year Award 2016
Moving from the plains of the West to Tennessee, Sebastian Barry’s novel is a masterpiece of atmosphere and language set in mid-nineteenth century America. An Irish émigré Thomas McNulty and his friend John Cole sign up for the US army – both orphans, barely seventeen – and go on to fight in the Indian wars and the Civil War. Their lives are further enriched and imperilled when a young Indian girl crosses their path.
