Jacob Ross from Grenada has been shortlisted, along with leading Canadian writers, for Best Book Award for Canada and the Caribbean, for the 2009 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize.
Ross challenged Canadian domination with his novel Pynter Bender being the only non-Canadian to be included in the line-up. His novel is a narrative of the birth of a modern West Indian island and the shaping of its people as they struggle to shake off the systems that have essentially kept them in slavery for centuries. In a fitting tribute to the scientific book of the same name, the Canada and Caribbean regional shortlist also features The Origin of the Species, where the main character, a graduate student in Montreal during the 1980s, contemplates Charles Darwin’s voyage on the Beagle as one of the world’s first backpacking journeys.
The Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, a much valued and sought-after award, aims to reward the best Commonwealth fiction written in English, by both established and new writers, and to take their works to a global audience.
The regional winners that emerge from each of the shortlists will be announced today. These winners will then enter the final phase of the competition and compete for the overall Best Book and Best First Book award. The two overall winners, chosen by an international panel of six judges coming together in New Zealand, will be announced on May 16 at the Auckland Writers’ and Readers Festival.
(Source: www.commonwealthfoundation.com)
2 Comments
March 11, 2009 at 1:17 pm
That is cool! What an accomplishment to even be nominated for this award.
March 12, 2009 at 9:51 am
[...] from Jamaica, Life, Unscripted, on the Rock reveals that “Jacob Ross from Grenada has been shortlisted…for the 2009 Commonwealth [...]