Ama wins Commonwealth Writers Best First Book
Prize
The historical novel by South African-born Manu
Herbstein, Ama: A Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, (e-reads,
USA) has won the Commonwealth Best First Book Prize 2002. In a dramatic
break with tradition, a title that was first published as an e-book
and print-on-demand edition, before being published as a paperback,
wins a major literary award.
Ama is the historical-fictional story of
a girl's and, later, woman's life through the horrors of slavery, and
her growth and battles towards the attainment of self liberty. Chairperson
for the pan-Commonwealth judging panel, Right Reverend Bishop Holloway,
author and former Bishop of Edinburgh, said of Manu Herbstein's £3,000
award success:
We surprised ourselves by our choice
of Best First Book. After a long and intricate discussion, we chose
a historical epic. It's a book written with tremendous moral passion
about a monstrous episode in human history.
The high point of the ceremony, held in Edinburgh,
Scotland on April 24, 2002, however goes to the Australian novelist,
Richard Flanagan, whose novel Gould's Book of Fish (Picador,
Australia; Atlantic Books, UK) won the main £10,000 Best Book
Prize 2002. Right Reverend Bishop Holloway sums up Flanagan's book thus:
By a majority, we chose the most
controversially difficult and demanding of the four books that were
before us, because we detected in it a touch of genius that, we believe,
will give it enduring significance. It is an impossible book to describe
or summarise. Some of the judges used adjectives like Dantean, Joycean,
even grotesque. To mix some of the metaphors we coined to capture its
quality: 'this is a baggy monster of a book that does literary cartwheels
on a tightrope.' I am sure you get the picture.
The judges for the 2002 panel were: Professor
Margery Fee (Canada), Dr Walter Perera (Sri Lanka), Ms Meira Chand (Singapore),
Professor Penina Mlama (Tanzania), Professor Vinesh Hookoomsing (Mauritius),
Dr Augustine Mensah (Ghana), Dr Michael Bucknor (Jamaica), Ms Judy Raymond
(Trinidad & Tobago), Ms Namita Gokhale (India), Ms Judith Palmer
(United Kingdom), Professor Bruce Bennett (Australia), Professor Subramani
(Fiji Islands).
BPN [end] [BPN,
no 30, 2002, p 12.]
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