Literary Awards to Diversify Your Reading

A while back I wrote a post about why awards short and longlists are good for our reading during which I said that I liked how literary awards helped bring to my attention titles and authors I'd never previously heard of. This year I set myself goals (that I have spectacularly failed to achieve) for diversifying my reading, and following on from the idea of discovering the unknown I thought I'd write a post highlighting some literary awards that feature diversity.

Many of these are awards for translation, and so the experiences of the authors may not be a milliion miles away from my own, but they are still from another culture and country.

Marsh Award for Children's Literature in Translation

This award is given every two years for a translation of a work intended for young readers. It has been awarded since 1996 and past winners include Toby Alone by Timothee de Fombelle (trans. Sarah Ardizonne), Duel by David Grossman (trans. Betsy Rosenberg) and In The Sea There Are Crocodiles by Fabio Geda (trans. Howard Curtis).

Their website.

Samuel Johnson Prize 


This is a prize for a non-fiction work in the English language and is awarded annually. It was founded in 2009 and the longlist for this year has just been announced and features, among others, The Unravelling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq by Emma Sky which I talked about the other week in my post on Atlantic Books! Previous winners include Mao's Great Famine by Frank Dikotter, Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick and The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale.

Their website.

International Rubery Book Award

Given my current obsession with independent publishers it will hardly come as a shock that this award features here. It has been awarded yearly since 2011 to the best work of fiction and the best short story from an independent publisher or self published. As there have only been five winners I feel I can probably list them all here. They are: Jump Derry by Christine Donovan, The Restorer by Daniela Murphy, The Man Who Wouldn't Stand Up by Jacob Appel, Flatlands by Victor Tapner and Don't Try This at Home by Angela Readman.

Their website

Forward Prizes for Poetry


Although these awards are really well known I know a lot of people, myself included, don't read much poetry so if you're looking to diversify into the genre this could be a good place to start. (another place I'd recommend is Jen Campbell's Youtube channel - you can find various of her poetry related videos here. She's a seriously well read lady!)

There are a lot of winners and not just the one prize. The Forward Arts Foundation also organizes World Poetry Day so rather than mention previous winners here I'll just direct you to their website. Go explore!

Man Booker International Prize


This award has just been reconfigured for next year. It used to be awarded every two years to an author of any nationality for a body of work that was written in English or generally available in English translation. Starting in 2016 it will be awarded annually to a book in English translation and the prize will be shared equally between the author and the translator.

Previous winners include Chinua Achebe (author of Things Fall Apart amongst other things), Alice Munro and Philip Roth.

Their website

These are just the British awards that I've found. Wikipedia has a whole huge page on literary awards throughout the world and although I would love to delve into them all I had to start somewhere! I'll probably do at least one more of these posts because although I'm sure none of us needs to, adding to your TBR is fun, right?

Let me know of any that you love that I've missed!

Why Awards Long & Shortlists Are Good for Our Reading...

As some of you may know this year I've actually astounded myself by managing to read more than one of the books on the Man Booker longlist. I've also been following the progress of the #ManBookerVloggers on Youtube with much interest and it got me thinking about the effect that award long and shortlists have on my own reading.

I have struggled with a lot of shortlisted books (and some winners) in the past because I find that a lot of times it's the authors that I perceive to be a little bit pretentious (sorry authors, I'm sure you're not trying to be!) or difficult to access that get shortlisted. To highlight an example, I started reading a very little bit of How to be Both by Ali Smith when it was longlisted for the Bailey's Women's Prize earlier this year, which it eventually won. However I really struggled to get into it and eventually gave up because the style was just too inaccessible for me. Obviously this is a personal thing and I know a lot of bloggers who love and adore Ali Smith and I do plan to give her work another go at a later date. My point is thus; through awards shortlists I get to access a body of work that I wouldn't necessarily naturally gravitate towards.

The Booker longlisted books that made my library reservations!

The books that people love and hype the hell out of in the blogging world (or at least the bit I interact with) don't necessarily always meet the books that are being hyped out there in the real world, for which read the 'literary world' and the bestsellers charts - two very different things, obviously, but my experience of what people are talking about is probably not the same as the literary editor of The Times for example (couldn't put a name in there because when I last regularly read the Times literary supplement it was Erica Wagner, and it isn't anymore. Anyway! I digress!). Literary awards present the opportunity for a meeting of my world and theirs.

Honestly, I don't often read a lot of the books but I do peruse the long and shortlists - especially for the Man Booker and the Bailey's Women's Prize - with great interest. I add a lot of them to my TBR, generally several to my library reservations list, and do my best to try to read a couple. I am an eclectic reader but I find that I don't gravitate as much as I used to towards literary fiction, and so a lot of times awards lists give me titles I'd never heard of before. This year was not only the first year I've read more than one on the Man Booker longlist, but also the first time I've ever read one of the titles prior to the list being announced; a happy coincidence brought about by my great love of Anne Tyler.


Every year I am encouraged toward my lifelong mission to actually read a whole long (or even short, who am I kidding?) list before the winner is announced by the fact that there's usually at least one title on the list I'd already intended to read and a few others which sound immediately appealing. It could be argued that I could void my own argument by just staying away from the ones that seem pretentious, but where's the fun in that?

Ahead of the announcement of the shortlist later this month, I had a little bit of a closer look at my Man Booker reading...
Of the previous forty eight winners of the Man Booker prize I have actually read eleven, five of which (Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood, The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro, and Schindler's Ark by Thomas Kenneally) I absolutely adored, one of which (Life of Pi by Yann Martel) I didn't love but left a strong impression, and the remaining five of which made little to no impression. I've also given up on two (Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre and Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey) and have another six on my shelves or TBR. I know that I read The God of Small Things and The Life of Pi directly because of the buzz they were getting for being shortlisted and I know that a lot of other books have arrived on my shelves and wishlists via these lists and for that I am very grateful to Man Booker and to the other major book awards which have thrown the great (and not so great) into my path.


The #ManBookerVloggers are: 
Jen Campbell
Leena - Just Kiss My Frog
Jean Bookishthoughts
Lauren - Reads and Daydreams
Ariel Bissett

And you should check out their videos (or just search the hashtag on Youtube) because they're really interesting.

Some other awards I plan to start trying to keep up with (in an abstract kind of way): 

The National Book Awards

The International Dylan Thomas Prize (authors under 30)

The Guardian First Book Award (first books, obviously)

The Scotiabank Giller Prize (for Canadian fiction)

The Hugos (Science fiction and fantasy)

The Pullitzer Prize (oh so many categories)

How do you feel about awards lists? Do you keep up with them? Religiously read everything on them every year? Completely ignore them? Have no idea what I'm talking about? Let me know in the comments! If you've read any of the longlisted titles for the Man Booker or have posted about your thoughts, please leave links to that below as well as I'd love to read!

All title links are affiliate - if you purchase through them I will receive a small commission and be very grateful!

Diversity TBR: Literary Awards

In case you were unaware, I really like lists. I particularly like impossibly long longlists for literary awards which I have little to no chance of ever completing a full read before the shortlist, and eventual winner, are announced. In pursuit of that elusive diversity that I'm after this year I've been doing a little research into some awards which are non-UK or USA based. There are a few whose past winners I'd love to add to my (ridiculous, unmanageable and once again ridiculous) TBR.

The Hans Christian Andersen Award

This is a pair of awards presented by the International Board on Books for Young People to a living author and a living illustrator for their lasting contribution to children's literature. It does include a lot of British and American authors/illustrators but also a lot from other countries. Some I'm excited to explore include Erich Kastner, Tove Jansson, Eleanor Farjeon, and Uri Orlev. Unfortunately a lot of the authors who have won don't seem to have work available in translation which (due to the fact that I'm rubbish at languages) limits the amount I can read. I shall do my best though!

Etisalat Prize for Literature

Established in 2013 (so not too much backlist to catch up with!) this is the first Pan-African prize for a first-time African writer of a fiction book. There are only two winners so far one of which (We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo) was already on my radar but I'll definitely be keeping my eyes on it!

Asian Literary Prize (Formerly the Man Asian Literary Prize)

Awarded yearly from 2007 to 2012 to the best novel by an Asian writer, written or translated into English published in the previous calendar  year. I like the look of a lot of the winners. For reference, they are thus:
* Wolf Totem - Jiang Rong (2007)
* Ilustrado - Miguel Syjuco (2008)
* The Boat to Redemption - Su Tong (2009)
* Three Sisters - Bi Fieyu (2010)
* Please Look After Mom - Shin Kyung-sook (2011)
* The Garden of Evening Mists - Tan Twang Eng (2012)

Caine Prize 

Awarded for the best original short story by an African writer written in the English language. I have an issue with the majority of the African authors I've read being of Nigerian heritage and although that's great as it's still a culture I know very little about, it would be good to broaden my reading to some of the many other African countries. Also short stories are great. I'll be searching some of the winners out!

Scotiabank Giller Prize

Awarded for excellence in Canadian fiction. This has been running since 1994 so there's quite a bit of choice, but hey Margaret Atwood's won it so I'm excited. Past winners I'd most like to read include:

* Half Blood Blues - Esi Edugyan
* A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
* Barney's Version -Mordecai Richler
* The In-Between World of Vikram Lall - M.G Vassanji
* Runaway - Alice Munro
* Late Nights on Air - Elizabeth Hay

Do you follow any of these awards? Anything I'm excited about that you've loved or hated? As usual, any non white/American/UK authors you love that I've not heard of and need to be reading?