Themes of identity and self-discovery among literary prize shortlist
A “compelling” array of books exploring themes such as identity, belonging and the challenges of self-discovery have been shortlisted for Britain’s oldest literary prizes.
Contenders for this year’s James Tait Black Prizes announced today include a vivid short story collection, a coming-of-agejourney,dramaamid the climate emergency, and a tripbackintimetothedecadent inter-war years.
The£10,000prizesareawardedannuallybytheuniversityof Edinburgh for the best biography and the best work of fiction published during the previous year.
Presented since 1919, they are the only major British book prizes judged by literature scholars and students.
The international shortlist features authors with links to America, Australia, England, Ireland, Mauritius, Scotland anduganda,withstoriestransporting readers to New York, Haiti and a fictitious artistic town in central Europe.
Nomineesforthefictionprize includeacollectionofshortstories exploring the themes of identity and displacement in the context of a Syrian experience and a novel set in Uganda charting a young girl’s journey to find her place in the world.
The other fiction nominees are a novel exploring the dark side of generational divides amid an environmental apocalypse and the story of a quest for self-discovery fueled by an infatuation with a forgotten Black modernist poet.
The four books shortlisted for the fiction prize are: Alligator & Other Stories (Picador), By Dima Alzayat; The First Woman (Oneworld) by
Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi; A Children’s Bible (W.W. Norton) by Lydia Millet; and Lote (Jacaranda) by Shola von Reinhold.
The shortlist for the biography prize includes a portrait of empire as told through the lives of a Native American, a Pacific Islander and the British artist who painted them both and a memoir of a woman who becomes obsessed with the life of 18th-century poet Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill.
The winners of both prizes will be announced in August at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, which will take place from its new home at the University’s Edinburgh College of Art.
The Book Festival’s full programme of events will be announced at the end of June.