I've just had a browse through the always impressively long IMPAC/Dublin Award longlist for 2008. One of the judges this year is the excellent Helon Habila. The following are titles on the list either by Africans or set in African countries:

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Half of a Yellow Sun
José Eduardo Agualusa - The Book of Chameleons
Vassilis Alexakis - Foreign Words
Tahar Ben Jelloun - The Last Friend
Juan Bonilla - The Nubian Prince
Yvette Christianse - Unconfessed
Dave Eggers - What is the What
Aminatta Forna - Ancestor Stones
Pamela Gien - The Syringa Tree
Faiza Guene - Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow
Yasmina Khadra - The Attack
Hisham Matar - In the Country of Men
Marlene van Niekerk - Agaat
Ngugi Wa Thiong'o - Wizard of the Crow

The IMPAC/Dublin Literary Award 2007 shortlist has been announced, whittled down from 138 novels (12 in translation) nominated by 169 libraries from around the world:

ARTHUR & GEORGE by Julian Barnes
A LONG LONG WAY by Sebastian Barry
SLOW MAN by J.M. Coetzee
EXTREMELY LOUD & INCREDIBLY CLOSE by Jonathan Safran Foer
THE SHORT DAY DYING by Peter Hobbs
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN by Cormac McCarthy
OUT STEALING HORSES by Per Petterson
SHALIMAR THE CLOWN by Salman Rushdie

Oh lordy - as usual I haven't read any of them, although the Coetzee, Hobbs and Rushdie are in my "To Be Read" pile!

The announcement of the Costa (formerly Whitbread) Book Award winners today, reminds me of my previous musings over the International IMPAC/Dublin Literary Award finalists. The longlist is vast and wide ranging: something for everyone (almost too huge, in fact). My focus, naturally is to explore the titles by African writers:

Leila Aboulela MINARET (Sudan)
Andre Brink PRAYING MANTIS (South Africa)
J.M. Coetzee SLOW MAN (South Africa)
Diana Evans 26A (UK/Nigeria)
Nadine Gordimer GET A LIFE (South Africa)
Abdulrazak Gurnah DESERTION (Zanzibar)
Uzodinma Iweala BEASTS OF NO NATION (USA/Nigeria)
Dan Jacobson ALL FOR LOVE (South Africa)
Zakes Mda THE WHALECALLER (South Africa)
Jude Njoku THE QUICK SANDS (Nigeria)
Helen Oyeyemi THE ICARUS GIRL (UK/Nigeria)
Johan Steyn FATHER MICHAEL'S LOTTERY (South Africa)
Ndikaru wa Teresia CRY OF THE OPPRESSED (Kenya)
Rachel Zadok GEM SQUASH TOKOLOSHE (South Africa)

Who would you choose to take a closer look at? Paul Auster? Neil Gaiman? Kate Grenville? Arnaldur Indridason? Elizabeth Kostova? Haruki Murakami?

The shortlist ("up to a maximum of ten titles") will be announced in March/April, so that gives three months to read at least some of the titles. Anyone like to join me? Let's call it the IMPAC/Dublin challenge - select your own "up to a maximum of ten titles" and get cracking!

Just in case you've run out of ideas for books to read, here comes the mother of all prize lists, the 2007 Impac/Dublin Literary Award longlist (incidentally, also a tidy sum if won, at 100 000 euros). The Africans on it are:
Leila Aboulela MINARET (Sudan)
Andre Brink PRAYING MANTIS (South Africa)
J.M. Coetzee SLOW MAN (South Africa)
Diana Evans 26A (UK/Nigeria)
Nadine Gordimer GET A LIFE (South Africa)
Abdulrazak Gurnah DESERTION (Zanzibar)
Uzodinma Iweala BEASTS OF NO NATION (USA/Nigeria)
Dan Jacobson ALL FOR LOVE (South Africa)
Zakes Mda THE WHALECALLER (South Africa)
Jude Njoku THE QUICK SANDS (Nigeria)
Helen Oyeyemi THE ICARUS GIRL (UK/Nigeria)
Johan Steyn FATHER MICHAEL'S LOTTERY (South Africa)
Ndikaru wa Teresia CRY OF THE OPPRESSED (Kenya)
Rachel Zadok GEM SQUASH TOKOLOSHE (South Africa).

I am embarrassed to say that I have never heard of Njoku, Steyn or Wa Teresia so will have to track these down immediately - the three of them also happen to be writers not yet published in the west, so there's a definite correlation there. An additional complication is that Wa Teresia appears to be self-published in Kenya, so this one may be a challenge to track down! Interestingly, only 5 of the 14 currently live on the continent, and I suppose there's always the question of whether writers like Evans, Iweala and Oyeyemi would actually even call themselves African given that they have been raised outside the continent.

There is a review of the latest book, MY MOTHER'S LOVERS, by South African Christopher Hope, one of the Impac/Dublin judges in 1996.

Nadine Gordimer was recently robbed and threatened in her home in South Africa. Her response to the attack was very different to Andre Brink's charge in the press which I wrote about last month, but no less valid. Read further about what she had to say here.

Shawn Slovo (sister to the author Gillian Slovo) has written the screenplay to a movie causing stirs in the film industry, CATCH A FIRE, shown recently at the London Film Festival. This article gives some of the background to Patrick Chamusso on whom the movie is based, including some of the very interesting story of the Slovo family. If this movie is anything like Shawn Slovo's 1988 film A WORLD APART then we are in for a real treat. If you have not yet seen A WORLD APART, then I highly recommend it to you. It is a truly representative film about South African white activist experience (CRY FREEDOM is nowhere near as good - too much Hollywood treatment). Although their names are changed (to Roth) in the film, it is about the Slovo family, whose story is deeply entwined with the history of the country. A WORLD APART was banned in South Africa when it came out and we would meet hush-hush to watch copies which themselves had been copied so many times that the quality of the film was distorted with stripy lines and fuzzy snow, smuggled from house to house. I can't recommend it highly enough. An exceptional film and an outstanding cast which deservedly won just about every award thrown at it at the time. A fitting tribute to the extraordinary humanity of Joe Slovo and Ruth First.

Going back to the Impac/Dublin longlist - I think I will give the African titles a whirl from February once the From The Stacks reading challenge is over! It helps that I've already read some of these, but I certainly haven't posted on any (except - in passing - Oyeyemi). Perhaps some of you will join me in the new year with a little selection from the longlist to your own criteria (all138 titles might be pushing it a bit!) as the shortlist will be announced March/April 2007.