Joseph O’Connor’s GHOST LIGHT long-listed for two French prizes

GHOST LIGHT by Joseph O'Connor, released as MUSE in France, has been long-listed for two prestigious literary prizes in France - the Prix Femina Étranger and the Prix Médicis Étranger. The former was created in 1904 by twenty-two writers in France, and the winner is decided each year by an exclusive female jury. Previous winners have included, Sofi Oksanen, Nuala O'Faolain, Joyce Carole Oates, Erri de Luca and Amos Oz. REDEMPTION FALLS was also nominated for this award in 2007. The winner for this year's prize will be announced on 2 November.

The Prix Médicis Étranger is a prize that celebrates foreign novels in France and was created  in 1970 in association with the the Prix Médicis for French novels. Previous winners include David Vann, who won last year, and Aharon Appelfeld, Orhan Pamuk and Enrique Vila-Matas. Other novelists that have been long-listed Eleanor Catton, Jonathan Franzen, David Grossman and Alessandro Piperno.

GHOST LIGHT, is published by Phébus in France and Harvill Secker in the UK and by twelve other publishers around the world. Joseph O'Connor has received wide acclaim for this novel both overseas and in the UK.

Praise for Joseph O'Connor:

'Joseph O'Connor always impresses us with the accuracy of his writing and his ability to create a setting and atmosphere, which is as poetic as it is charged with mystery.' -- Alain Favarger, La Liberté

'One of the best novelists of the Irish 'nouvelle vague'.'-- Le Quotidien Jurassien

'When I think of GHOST LIGHT, the words climb over each other to be first in the queue: brilliant, beautiful, exhilarating, heartbreaking, masterly. It's that good.' -- Roddy Doyle

SUSHI, written and directed by Maeve Murphy, wins the 2011 Sub-ti International Short Film competition

The film will be screened as part of the current Venice Film Festival and at other international film festivals.

The third annual competition was for a short film on subtitles and international dialogue, or subtitling as a means of cross-cultural communication.

SUSHI is about how, in a crisis moment, a compassionate connection is made between two strangers from different cultures who are also neighbours. That conversation is the start of a friendship beyond cultural and linguistic differences.  A suicidal woman is saved by sushi. Set in London, it is a quirky charming short, and also an excerpt from Maeve's current feature project TAKING STOCK.

Produced by the London Film Academy; Executive Producers: Daisy Gili & Anna MacDonald; Produced by Holly Wells.
Starring Luanna Priestman and Junichi Kajioka.

Maeve Murphy was born and brought up in Northern Ireland. She studied English at Cambridge University and was the secretary of the Cambridge Footlights. Her early career was in theatre with award winning theatre company Trouble and Strife. Maeve then worked at Parallax Pictures Production Company and moved into film. Her previous films are: Beyond The Fire (2009/2010), Silent Grace (2004), Salvage (2001 - short film).

With this competition, Sub-ti continues on its mission to promote independent cinema, and at the same time it also provides an excellent opportunity for exposure to young filmmakers and film school students. The competition is indeed targeted to directors and aspiring filmmakers, as well as film and communications students, of all nationalities.

The winning short film will be screened over the world, at the international film festivals which Sub-ti is a partner of.

http://www.s ubti.com

TO DEFY A KING is number 4 in the Top 10 Heatseeker’s chart

Elizabeth Chadwick's TO DEFY A KING was published in paperback only two weeks ago and is now high in the Heatseeker's chart.  In the first week on sale, it shot straight into the top 100 at 98 and has now risen from 9 to 4 in the Bookseller's Heatseeker chart.

Chadwick's 18th novel features Mahelt Marshal, the privileged daughter of one of the most powerful men in medieval England, William Marshal, and is a story of great emotional power.

TO DEFY A KING has already won the Romantic Novelists' Historical Novel of the Year 2011. Chadwick's novels are published by Little Brown UK and have been translated into eighteen languages worldwide. Chadwick's latest novel, LADY OF THE ENGLISH, was published in hardback in June this year.

Praise for Elizabeth Chadwick:

The best writer of medieval fiction currently around.'  -- Historical Novel Review

'Chadwick's extensive research, vivid and detailed prose, and the life she breathes back into characters that lived eight centuries ago is pure genius…Chadwick offers the reader plenty of information and quickly, and with extraordinary skill, whisks the reader back to the very beginnings of the thirteenth century.  While TO DEFY A KING is over 500 pages, the time will fly by and the reader, if like myself, will not be able to set the book down.  I cannot praise To Defy A King highly enough and strongly recommend it to all readers.' -- Rundpinne

'Really, whether you like historical fiction or are not sure, you are a hardcore fan or a newbie, you should definitely find a permanent spot on your bookshelf for TO DEFY A KING. I simply cannot see how you could be disappointed after reading it. You'll most likely want to rush to the store or a library to get all the rest of Ms. Chadwick's books (I most certainly do!)' -- Reading Extravaganza

Deon Meyer nominated for both the Macavity and the Barry Award in the US

The US edition of Deon Meyer's THIRTEEN HOURS has been shortlisted for the Barry Award in the Best Thriller category and for the Macavity Award in the Best Mystery Novel category.

Please click here for more information on the Macavity Award and here for more on the Barry Award.

THIRTEEN HOURS, Deon Meyer's most recent paperback, was also shortlisted for the CWA International Dagger 2010 and won the South African ATKV prize for suspense fiction in 2009. Deon Meyer's latest title, TRACKERS, which was highlighted as one of PW's Top 10 Fiction: Mysteries & Thrillers for this autumn is out now in the UK, US and Canada, and will soon be out in France and Germany.

Joan Smith said of TRACKERS in the Sunday Times: 'A riveting crime novel, the author's best work yet...Deon Meyer is one of the sharpest chroniclers of post-apartheid South Africa...This is the author's most accomplished novel to date. Following the thrilling plot of his bestselling THIRTEEN HOURS was always going to be a challenge but he's visibly gained confidence, showing his technical skill and handling the different sections of the new book with effortless ease. It's a mesmerising read, and a startling revelation at the very end suggests that we haven't heard the last of these engaging characters.' Click here to read the full review on her blog.

And Shots Magazine says: 'Meyer has moved into the John le Carré class...TRACKERS is a great thriller and a fine novel of characterisation.'

Please click here for a youtube video of Deon discussing TRACKERS.

PRAISE for Deon Meyer
 
The Financial Times on Deon Meyer's 13 HOURS: 'Superbly accomplished chase thriller by a South African writer now gaining deserved international recognition...Watch out for TRACKERS, his new book due out in September.'

'Deon Meyer has written six novels and THIRTEEN HOURS is probably the best (not taking anything away from its predecessors).  It is taut, moving and deeply memorable, and is highly recommended.' -- Theodore Feit, Crimespree and Spinetingler Magazines

'Deon Meyer is one of the unsung masters. THIRTEEN HOURS proves he should be on everyone's reading list. This book is great!' -- Michael Connelly

'THIRTEEN HOURS has breathtaking suspense, psychological understanding, and one of the most inspiring detectives ever. Deon Meyer deserves his international reputation.' -- Thomas Perry

'Try picking up THIRTEEN HOURS and setting it down. Try. You can't do it. I'm a pro, and I couldn't do it.' -- Don Winslow, author of THE POWER OF THE DOG and SAVAGES

'Best-selling South African novelist Meyer delivers another exciting if brutally violent crime novel. Expertly cutting away from the politicized police investigation to the plight of a terrified young girl literally running for her life, Meyer also steeps his novel in the day-to-day life of a country still reeling in the wake of radical transition.' -- Joanne Wilkinson, Starred Review, Atlantic Monthly

AGAAT shortlisted for the second St Francis College Literary Prize

Marlene Van Niekerk's compelling story of love and family loyalty in apartheid South Africa, AGAAT (UK title:THE WAY OF THE WOMEN) has been shortlisted for the $50,000 St Francis College Literary Prize, with the winner to be announced on 17 September at the opening night gala for the 2011 Brooklyn Book Festival

The six writers, competing for one of the richest awards in North America, are a diverse mix of authors, coming from across the United States and around the world. The other authors are: Kevin Brockmeier, The Illumination (Pantheon); Joshua Cohen, Witz (Dalkey Archive Press); Jonathan Dee, The Privileges (Random House); Yiyun Li, Gold Boy Emerald Girl (Random House); and Brad Watson, Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives (W. W. Norton & Company). The first St. Francis College Literary Award was given in 2009 to Aleksandar Hemon for his book, Love and Obstacles (Riverhead Books).

The jury for the award is composed of three award winning writers; Francine Prose (A Changed Man, Blue Angel, My New American Life), Rick Moody (The Four Fingers of Death, Garden State, The Ice Storm) and Darcey Steinke (Easter Everywhere, Milk: A Novel, Suicide Blonde).

AGAAT has in the past year been shortlisted for Three Percent's Best Translated Book Award and the Independent Booksellers Choice Award.

Marlene van Niekerk has received wide recognition for AGAAT since it was first published in South Africa by Tafelberg  in Afrikaans in 2004, and in English by Tafelberg with Jonathan Ball in 2006, translated by prize-winning translator and novelist Michiel Heyns.  AGAAT was shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2008 and won the South African  Sunday Times Literary Award in 2005, and Heyns was awarded Outstanding Translation Award in 2009 as well as the Sol Plaatje Award for Translation in 2008. It was listed as a Best Book in 2010  by both Publisher's Weekly, and Booklist. AGAAT was brought out in the UK by Little Brown in 2007 under the title THE WAY OF THE WOMEN and Tin House published AGAAT under its original title in 2010. Rights have been sold to Gallimard in France, Neri Pozza in Italy, Querido in Holland, and Svante Weyler in Sweden. Film rights are sold to Mutz-Media.

Praise for AGAAT:

'I was immediately mesmerized by Ms. van Niekerk's novel. Its beauty matches its depth and her achievement is as brilliant as it is haunting.' -- Toni Morrison

'Unquestionably the most important novel since Coetzee's DISGRACE…narrative creation of the highest order.' -- Patrick Denman Flanery, Times Literary Supplement

'Van Niekerk follows the widely lauded TRIOMF with a dark, innovative epic that trudges through the depths of a South African farmwife's soul...Clearly an allegory for race relations in South Africa, the novel succeeds on numerous other grounds: a rich evocation of family dynamics; a chilling portrait of bodily and mental decay; and a successful experiment in combining diaries, the second-person, and stream of consciousness. Van Niekerk marshals it all to evoke the resigned mind of a dying woman who realizes, too late, the horrible mistakes that have made her life a waste.' -- Publishers Weekly starred review

 'This novel stuns with its powerful sense of the rigors of farm life, desolation of a failing marriage, and comfort of a long and complex relationship.' -- Vanessa Bush, Booklist starred review