Winners of Commonwealth Writers’ Prize announced

Canadian author Lawrence Hill won the Overall Best Book Award at the annual Commonwealth Writers’ Prize 2008, announced at the Franschhoek Literary Festival in South Africa on 18 May.

Through the voice of Aminita Diallo, an African woman sold into slavery, Mr Hill looks at what he describes as “the forgotten story” of 1,200 Africans who are liberated after many years of forced slavery in the Americas in the 18th century.

Nicholas Hasluck, chair of the adjudication panel, praised ‘The Book of Negroes’ as “epic in scope”, adding that it is “compellingly narrated [and] challenges us to re-examine the history of slavery.”

The Overall Best First Book Award of £5,000 went to Tahmima Anam from Bangladesh, whose book ‘A Golden Age’ is a fictional account of the creation of Bangladesh. Mr Hasluck commended “the assured and lyrical prose [which] evokes the tumultuous birthing of a new nation in an intensely personal narrative.”

Mr Hill, who was awarded the £10,000 prize, will travel to London for an audience with the Head of the Commonwealth, Queen Elizabeth II. He will also meet with Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma and give a public reading from his winning book at Foyles’ flagship London store.

The Commonwealth Writers’ Prize aims to reward the best Commonwealth fiction written in English, by both established and new writers, and to take their work to a global audience, thereby increasing appreciation of and building understanding between cultures.

It is sponsored and organised across all four award regions by the Commonwealth Foundation with the support of the Macquarie Group Foundation, one of Australia’s leading philanthropic foundations which focuses its resources in five core areas: education, the arts, health, welfare and the environment.

“The whole week, which has seen the regional winning writers and the judges interact with readers, writers and students in diverse communities across South Africa, shows the reach and range of this prize,” said the Foundation’s Director, Dr Mark Collins.

Related Websites:

• Commonwealth Foundation