Man Gone Down by Michael Thomas won the €100,000 (US$141,400) International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the world's richest literary prize. The Guardian reported that "the winning novel, first published by Grove Atlantic, USA, and a New York Times top ten book of 2007, was chosen from a shortlist of eight, which included novels from the USA, France, India, Pakistan and Norway." The book, which was published in the U.K. this year, emerged "from an international longlist of 147 titles, nominated by libraries around the world."
I'm stunned," said Thomas. "I had a hard time believing I'd made the shortlist--or the longlist, for that matter--so I'm still waiting for the punch line."
The judging panel observed: "We never know his name. But the African-American protagonist of Michael Thomas' masterful debut, Man Gone Down, will stay with readers for a long time. He lingers because this extraordinary novel comes to us from a writer of enthralling voice and startling insight. Tuned urgently to the way we live now, the winner . . . is a novel brilliant in its scope and energy, and deeply moving in its human warmth.”
The shortlist included The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz, The Burnt-Out Town of Miracles by Roy Jacobsen, Ravel by Jean Echenoz, Animal's People by Indra Sinha, The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid, The Archivist's Story by Travis Holland and The Indian Clerk by David Leavitt.
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The Marriage Bureau for Rich People by Farahad Zama won the £5,000 (US$8,298) Melissa Nathan Award for Comedy Romance. The Guardian reported that Zama, an IT director for an investment bank who wrote his book while riding on the train to work, "is the first man to win the award, and was the only male author on a shortlist of six."
"It's a little bit unusual that a man is writing in this genre," said Zama. "But my book is not a typical chick lit book. It's set in India, and deals with reasonably serious topics--but at heart it is a romantic novel. . . . In England at the moment there is a big divide between literary fiction and popular fiction. The fact that so many people do read for escape is an important factor that needs to be recognized. It doesn't mean that because something is comedy romance that the writing can't be good, or that deeper topics can't be addressed. It's just a matter of finding the balance."
The other shortlisted books were The Secret Shopper's Revenge by Kate Harrison, Bridesmaids by Jane Costello, Recipe for Disaster by Miriam Morrison, A Winter's Tale by Trisha Ashley and The Importance of Being Emma by Juliet Archer.