Commonwealth Writers’ Prize winners announced

Australian writer Christos Tsiolkas has scooped this year’s prestigious Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, beating competition from a host of acclaimed authors including Salman Rushdie and Aravind Adiga.

“I was genuinely surprised,” says Tsiolkas, referring to the moment last weekend at the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival in New Zealand when he found he had been was chosen as author of the Best Book of 2009. “I felt elated and also quite humble.”

In claiming the writers’ prize, an award that celebrates the best of new English-language fiction, 43 year-old Tsiolkas joins the ranks of past winners and literary giants such as Louis de Bernières, Peter Carey and Rohinton Mistry among others.

Tsiolkas’s novel, “The Slap”, burrows deep into the nature of relationships and identity in modern society while also confronting the issue of corporal punishment, a disciplinary practice laden with controversy and regarded variously by parents and politicians as either entirely justified or utterly heinous.

Told from eight different perspectives, the book opens with a family barbecue, a familiar and apparently innocuous scene in Australian suburban society. But the mood soon turns sour when the kids begin to bicker. One parent strikes another’s child with the palm of their hand and from thereon in flows the drama.

“I never intended to write a book about corporal punishment,” says Tsiolkas. “It’s not about whether it is right or wrong. It is about how we make moral decisions about the way we treat our children, partners, colleagues and friends in contemporary society. That is really what animates me.”

The result is a “controversial and daring novel”, according to chair of the judging panel, Nicholas Hasluck. “It taps into universal tensions and dilemmas around family life and child-rearing,” he says. “This book is sure to challenge readers and provoke debate.”

“The Slap” is not the first of Tsiolkas’ novels to achieve commercial and critical acclaim. He gained fame in his native Australia for “Loaded” in 1995, a gritty tale about 24 hours in the life of a bisexual working class immigrant, which was later made into a film. But the author seems genuinely touched by the reception “The Slap” has received and the positive reaction of a panel of judges drawn from across the Commonwealth.

“I didn’t sit down and plan to write a successful book. You write what you want to write about. Otherwise you don’t have that fire in the belly, which is crucial to get you up at your desk in the morning,” he says.

Tsiolkas receives, in addition to the kudos of winning, a cash sum of £10,000 for his efforts. But he says the real prize was to meet, listen to and take part in public readings with his fellow nominees, including Pakistani writer Mohammed Hanif, who this year won Best First Book. “They expressed such camaraderie and generosity – it was fantastic to be in their company.”

Keen to explore the work of his peers, Tsiolkas has bought copies of his fellow competitors’ novels, and he seems determined to read his way through them all. “One thing that connects us is writing in English and a certain shared history with this entity called the Commonwealth,” he says. “The best thing for me is that it has opened my eyes to a range of writing that I should have been aware of before.”

The awards ceremony on 16 May in Auckland marked the culmination of a selection process that saw regional shortlists of writers drawn from Africa, Canada and the Caribbean, Europe and South Asia and South East Asia and the Pacific. Forty-eight authors in total were shortlisted for the two awards – twelve from each region.

Since the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize was established by the Commonwealth Foundation in 1987, the awards have helped launch the careers of writers like Zadie Smith, Mark Haddon and Vikram Chandra.

Set up in 1965, the Commonwealth Foundation works alongside the Commonwealth Secretariat to support cultural understanding, democracy, development and civil society organisations. The support to the Commonwealth Writers' Prize forms one part of the Foundation’s culture programme.

“The books take risks and are quite edgy and provocative,” says Andrew Firmin, manager of the Foundation’s culture programme, who observed the judging and has read all eight of the regional category winning books.

“That is the reason why we do it. It is to encourage people to read outside of their cultural comfort zone – to read books on other cultures and improve understanding through literature,” he says.

“Everything we do is about getting people from other countries to understand each other better.”

The Commonwealth Writers’ Prize is also supported by the Macquarie Group Foundation.