Petina Gappah Makes the £10 000 Guardian First Book Prize Shortlist

October 30th, 2009 by Ben - Editor

Alert! Petina Gappah’s collection of short stories, An Elegy for Easterly, has been shortlisted for the £10 000 Guardian First Book Prize.

The prize is open to both fiction and non-fiction, and, unlike many other British-based literary gongs, is not exclusive to Commonwealth writers. Thus, Gappah’s short stories have competition in the form of American Reif Larsen’s novel, for instance, The Selected Works of TS Spivet, which has carved a meteoric arc from the US to literary centres around the globe.

Here are the five shortlisted works – four of fiction, and one, by Michael Peel, of non-fiction:

2009 Guardian First Book Prize shortlist

The Wilderness by Samantha Harvey
The Selected Works of TS Spivet by Reif Larsen
The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton
An Elegy for Easterly by Petina Gappah
A Swamp Full of Dollars: Pipelines and Paramilitaries at Nigeria’s Oil Frontier by Michael Peel

Powerful fictional storytelling dominates the shortlist of this year’s Guardian First Book award, announced today, which includes works that range from a portrayal of Alzheimer’s to a novel that was the subject of a bidding war between 10 publishers.
Three novels, one collection of short stories and a work of reportage are in contention for the £10,000 first prize won last year by a particularly strong work of non-fiction, Alex Ross’s The Rest is Noise.
The shortlist was decided by a judging panel that included the novelist Tobias Hill and broadcaster Martha Kearney and, with one vote, Waterstone’s reading groups in Oxford, London, Leeds, Edinburgh and Bath.
Claire Armitstead, the Guardian’s literary editor and chair of judges, said the dominance of fiction in the shortlist was not mere coincidence. “It reflects the power of good storytelling and is a reminder that, despite regular cries that the novel is a dying art form, it is still the one we turn to – whether to explore the most troubling areas of society and public identity, or just to switch off and lose ourselves in something beyond our own small lives.”