Time for another quick round-up of lterarynews from the UK, and it's been a busy prize-giving month...
Jacob Polley (below) won the Somerset Maugham Award with his novel Talk of the Town (a previous EnCompass Book of the Month choice).
 Photo: Sandi Friend
Read the EnCompassCulture interview with Jacob Polley.
British writer RJ Ellory won the increasingly prestigious Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year award for A Simple Act of Violence. Ellory declared himself 'completely and utterly gobsmacked and speechless' at the news.
Also in crime, the Crime Writers' Association's International Dagger Award was given to Swedish writer Johan Theorin, for his book The Darkest Room. Find out more.
Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick won the £20,000 2010 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction. In the book Demick weaves together the stories of adversity, resilience and survival of six ordinary people living in Chongin, North Korea.
Poet Philip Gross, who earlier this year won the prestigious TS Eliot Prize, was also named winner of the Wales Book of the Year Award for his collection I Spy Pinhole Eye.
Onto forthcoming prizes now, and the thirteen books longlisted for this year's Man Booker Prize for fiction were announced, and are: Peter Carey, Parrot and Olivier in America; Emma Donoghue, Room; Helen Dunmore, The Betrayal; Damon Galgut, In a Strange Room (our EnCompass Book of the Month choice this month); Howard Jacobson, The Finkler Question; Andrea Levy (below), The Long Song; Tom McCarthy, C; David Mitchell, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet; Lisa Moore, February; Paul Murray, Skippy Dies; Rose Tremain, Trespass; Christos Tsiolkas, The Slap (our Book of the Month choice last month); and Alan Warner, The Stars in the Bright Sky.
 Photo: FMcM Associates
The shortlisted collections in line for this year's Forward Poetry Prize have been announced. Vying for the best collection prize will be: Seamus Heaney, Human Chain; Lachlan Mackinnon, Small Hours; Sinéad Morrissey, Through the Square Window; Robin Robertson, The Wrecking Light; Fiona Sampson, Rough Music; and Jo Shapcott, Of Mutability. In the running for the best first collection prize are: Christian Campbell, Running the Dusk; Hilary Menos, Berg; Abegail Morley, How to Pour Madness into a Teacup; Helen Oswald, Learning Gravity; Steve Spence, A Curious Shipwreck; and Sam Willetts, New Light for the Old Dark. The winners will be announced on 6th October.
The shortlist for this year's prestigious Frank O'Connor short story award has also been revealed: If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This by Robin Black; Mattaponi Queen by Belle Boggs; Wild Child by TC Boyle; The Shieling by David Constantine (below); Burning Bright by Ron Rash; and What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us by Laura van den Berg. The winner of the 35,000 euro prize will be announced in September.
 Photo: Bloodaxe
A final 'winner' over the last month has been the city of Dublin, which was officially designated a UNESCO City of Literature. The award reflects 'the rich historical literary past of the city, the vibrant contemporary literature, the variety of festivals and attractions available and [...] the birthplace and home of literary greats'. Find out more.
Published 02/08/2010 | 
