Writers’ Trust announces finalists for McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize
TORONTO — Three writers have been named finalists for the $10,000 Writers’ Trust/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize.
Sharon Bala of St. John’s, N.L., was nominated for “Butter Tea at Starbucks,” published in The New Quarterly.
Richard Kelly Kemick of Calgary made the short list for “The Most Human Part of You,” featured in Maisonneuve.
Darlene Naponse of Naughton, Ont., is in contention for “She Is Water,” published in The Malahat Review.
Each of the three finalists will receive $1,000, while the winner will receive a total of $10,000. The journal that originally published the winning entry will also receive $2,000.
The winner will be announced Nov. 14 at the Writers’ Trust Awards ceremony in Toronto.
Now in its 29th year, the prize is for a new and developing writer who wrote the best short story first published in a Canadian literary journal during the previous year.
Past winners include Yann Martel, Alissa York, Saleema Nawaz and Yasuko Thanh.
James A. Michener donated his Canadian royalty earnings from his 1998 novel “Journey” to make the prize possible.
McClelland & Stewart will publish the 12 stories that were nominated for this year’s long list in an annual fiction anthology that will be available Sept. 26.
US author George Saunders favourite to win Man Booker Prize
LONDON — American author George Saunders is favoured to win the prestigious Man Booker Prize for fiction with his novel of the afterlife, “Lincoln in the Bardo,” according to British bookmakers.
Bookmakers Ladbrokes and William Hill made Saunders the frontrunner among six finalists announced Wednesday for the 50,000-pound ($66,000) prize. His novel is set in a Washington graveyard, where President Abraham Lincoln visits the body of his 11year-old son in 1862.
Three British and three American authors make up the finalists. They range from 29-year-old firsttime novelist Fiona Mozley to 70year old New York icon Paul Auster.
Alongside “Lincoln in the Bardo,” the contenders authored by Americans are “4321,” Auster’s story of parallel lives, and Emily Fridlund’s Midwest coming-of-age tale “History of Wolves.”
The other finalists are British Pakistani writer Mohsin Hamid’s migration story “Exit West,” Scottish novelist Ali Smith’s Brexit themed “Autumn” and “Elmet,” Mozley’s novel about a fiercely independent family under threat.
The judging panel culled books by several big names from the 13novel list, including Zadie Smith’s “Swing Time,” Colson Whitehead’s “The Underground Railroad” and “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness” by Arundhati Roy.