Orange You Glad?

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Love Marriage Cover.jpgThis just in…

The Orange Prize for Fiction, the UK’s only annual book award for fiction written by a woman, today announces the 2009 longlist. Now in its fourteenth year, the Prize celebrates excellence, originality and accessibility in women’s writing from throughout the world.[Orange Prize]

On the long list are a few South Asian authors, including our very own own Mutineer V.V. Ganeshananthan for her book Love Marriage. Congratulations!

Yalini (the narrator and the end product of many marriages) and her generation are the children of their parents. But they live in other countries where the old rules of marriage – Love Marriage, Arranged Marriage and everything in between – do not apply. And parents who left Sri Lanka to escape the ethnic violence and to give their children opportunity, look on helplessly as those children embrace the one opportunity they didn’t intend them to take: Western Marriage.[OrangePrize]

Intrigued? Read her Sepia Mutiny interview with Sandhya here.

Other South Asian notable mentions include Preeta Samarasan and Kamila Shamsie. More after the jump…Evening is the Whole Day Cover.jpgPreeta Samarasan for Evening is The Whole Day

As the story of the Rajesekharan family unfolds, we learn what has happened to their hopes and dreams. What brought them to the Big House in troubled, post-colonial Malaysia? What was Chellam’s unforgivable crime? What is Appa – the respectable family patriarch – hiding from his wife and children? [OrangePrize]

Our own Sandhya blogged a book review for this at Literary Safari.

Burnt Shadows Cover.jpg Kamila Shamsie for Burnt Shadows

[I]n search of new beginnings, Hiroko travels to Delhi…As the years unravel, new homes replace those left behind and old wars are seamlessly usurped by new conflicts. But the shadows of history – personal and political – are cast over the entwined worlds of the Burtons, Ashrafs and the Tanakas as they are transported from Pakistan to New York, and, ultimately, to Afghanistan in the immediate wake of 9/11. [OrangePrize]

The full list of nominees are available at the website here. Notable desi past mentions includes Roopa Farooqi, short listed for this award for her book Bitter Sweets in 2007.

Any woman writing in English, whatever her nationality, country of residence, age or subject matter, is eligible. The winner will receive a cheque for £30,000 and a limited edition bronze known as a ‘Bessie’, created and donated by the artist Grizel Niven. Both are anonymously endowed.

The winner will be announced at an awards ceremony to be held in The Ballroom at the Royal Festival Hall on 3 June.[OrangePrize]

Congratulations to all the women who are on this list. We’ll be holding our breathes for the result on June 3rd!

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About Taz

Taz is an activist, organizer and writer based in California. She is the founder of South Asian American Voting Youth (SAAVY), curates MutinousMindState.tumblr.com and blogs at TazzyStar.blogspot.com. Follow her at twitter.com/tazzystar

19 thoughts on “Orange You Glad?”

  2. Michelle de Kretser, on the current long list, is also Sri Lankan. I loved her novel, “The Hamilton Case,” though I haven’t yet read “The Lost Dog.”

    Congrats, Sugi!

  7. Interesting that all three have the ‘immigrant experience’ component. Or seem to. I haven’t read any of them.

  9. Congratulations VV and best of luck, I haven’t yet read your novel but it just jumped numerous spots in my to-read ‘shortlist.’

  11. I was about to make a comment about the lack of Indian male authors and my brain started working and I remembered that this is a list for a women’s award.

  13. How odd….

    So, I link post cover of an Orange prize winning book on my blog a few days back (because it’s Rose Tremain and it’s photo of a rainy day viewed through a rainy window and I like it) and then I come here…..and one of the SM’ers is nominated for the same prize.

    Well, good for you V.V.! (I owe you, like, a ton of apologies because I was so grumpy on another post of yours and kept arguing with you until ANNA shamed me into apologizing).

    Cool. Again, congrats.

    *Rose Tremain’s book is also about the immigrant experience, I think, The Road Home. Eastern European into London, I think.

  14. That link, Mr. X, mentions Anita Brookner, who I mention ALL THE TIME, because I like unfashionable things, as declining to have her novels entered into the competition. Whatevs.

    My point is: those of you who think that AB’s books are just dreary neurotic priviledged WW in London, well. They could be read as a kind of ‘outsider’ immigrant-y fiction, too, as many of the characters are second Jewish gen emigres from Eastern Europe to England.

    I stand by my unfashionable assessments!

    *For a third time, because I was a jerk before, congrats VV.

  15. I stand by my many errors in the posts above, too, it wouldn’t be a MD/OPS post if it didn’t have grammatical and spelling errors, now would it?

  17. 12 · Mr. X said

    What are your thoughts on this sort of criticism?

    Why not have a women only orange prize when you have the Man Booker prize?