By Edith Tierney ’24
Staff Writer
Fall book award season is upon us, highlighting titles from this past year that, according to critics and award panelists, are worthy of praise and recognition. Some notable book awards are the United States specific National Book Award, the Booker Prize for Fiction, the PEN/Faulkner Award and The Women’s Prize for Fiction. Every year, the panelists for each award pick books for a longlist based on nominations from publishers. They then narrow this down to a shortlist, from which they select a winner. Winners for the Women’s Prize for Fiction were announced on Sept. 8, and winners for the National Book Award and the Booker Prize will be announced in the coming weeks.
The 2021 Women’s Prize for Fiction winner is “Piranesi” by Susanna Clark, a mystical brain teaser of a novel in which main character Piranesi occupies an extraordinary building called the House, which contains infinite rooms, countless statues and an ocean. His only company comes when the Other, the only living human Piranesi knows of, needs help with a science experiment.
The other five books on the shortlist in 2021 for this prize were: “No One is Talking About This” by Patricia Lockwood, “The Vanishing Half” by Brit Bennet, “Unsettled Ground” by Claire Fuller, “Transcendent Kingdom” by Yaa Gyasi and “How the One Armed Sister Sweeps Her House” by Cherie Jones.
The Women’s Prize for Fiction is based in the United Kingdom. Winners receive £30,000, along with a bronze figurine called the “Bessie.” The Women’s Prize Trust, the organization that supports and organizes the Women’s Prize for Fiction, is funded by a private donor. The organization is unique in that it is also a registered charity that campaigns for women writers globally. Aside from the prize, they also provide mentoring programs, donate books and have free resources online and in bookshops to help people access contemporary women’s literature.
The Booker Prize is awarded to a novel published in English in either the United Kingdom or Ireland. Each year, each author shortlisted for the Booker Prize receives £2,500, and the winner receives £50,000. The shortlist for 2021 was announced on Sept. 14, and the winner will be announced on Nov. 3 on the BBC. The shortlist is comprised of six books: “The Promise” by Damon Galgut, “A Passage North” by Anuk Arudpragasam, “No One is Talking About This” by Patricia Lockwood, “The Fortune Men” by Nadifa Mohamed, “Bewilderment” by Richard Powers and “Great Circle” by Maggie Shipstead.
According to the prize’s website, the Booker Prize, also known as the Man Booker Prize, was founded in 1968 by Booker McConnall, a multinational company. This was created as the British equivalent to the Prix Goncourt, a well-known French literary prize. In 2005, The International Booker Prize was founded as an expansion to the Booker Prize. The International Booker Prize is focused on translated fiction and works originally published outside of the United Kingdom and Ireland that have recently been published in aforementioned countries. In 2021, the International Booker Prize winner, “At Night All Blood is Black” by David Diop, was announced on June 2.
The National Book Award, one of the most prestigious literary awards in the United States, according to the New York Times, is given for fiction, nonfiction, poetry, “young people’s” literature and translated literature. Each section has a panel of five judges. The shortlists, consisting of five books each, were announced on Oct. 5, and the finalists will be announced on Nov. 17. For fiction, the shortlist consists of “Cloud Cuckoo Land” by Anthoney Doerr, “Matrix” by Lauren Groff, “Zorrie” by Laid Hunt, “The Prophets'' by Robert Jones Jr. and “Hell of a Book” by Jason Matt.
The National Book Foundation, the organization that manages the National Book Award, was founded in 1989, according to their website. Previously, the National Book Awards were jointly sponsored by three literary organizations that began the tradition in 1950. Over the years, the award has had many different categories and prizes. By 1996, the award was given in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and young people’s literature. Translated fiction was added as a category in 2018, the website said.
Today, the National Book Foundation has educational programming across the country, but the National Book Award remains at the forefront of their foundation. Its mission, according to the prize’s website, is “to celebrate the best literature in America, expand its audience, and ensure that books have a prominent place in American culture.”
Freelance copywriter and book blogger Emma Rose Hollands wrote in a blog post, “It is the pleasure of discussing, assessing and celebrating books that brings us to the root of why literary prizes are necessary: they show us that books should be prized. Like any other form of art, books are important to cultures across the globe. They can bring about change across society and they can touch our hearts in the smallest ways.”