The list for this year’s James Tait Black Prizes features compelling work in fiction and biography that raises questions about gender, race and the art of capturing a life on page.
Contemporary writing
Contenders for this year’s fiction prize include a novel that captures a day in the life of a woman reflecting on a decades-long discordant relationship in the Lake District, and a satirical novel about a mountain lion who ponders the impact of climate change from its home under the Hollywood sign in Los Angeles.
Other nominated titles include a debut novel exploring an Irishman’s will to continue his mother’s selfless good works, and an epic tale set in a fictional Aboriginal Australian town facing climate catastrophe.
The four novels shortlisted for the £10,000 fiction prize are: Lori and Joe by Amy Arnold (Prototype Publishing); Open Throat by Henry Hoke (Macmillan Publishers); Though the Bodies Fall by Noel O’Regan (Granta Books); and Praiseworthy by Alexis Wright (And Other Stories).
The awards – presented by the University since 1919 – are the only major British book prizes judged by literature scholars and students.
Historical events
This year the judges described the shortlist as some of the very best contemporary writing that imagines lives at their dense contact points with historical events, natural environments, social transformations, and other lives both near and far.
The shortlist for the £10,000 biography prize has been increased to six titles for this year. It includes an exploration into the motivation of murderers in the Veracruz area of Mexico, and the story of an author investigating what happened to the work of a writer who took their own life.
Also in the running is a snapshot of the post-Second World War culture of sex, drugs and rock-and-roll through the eyes of West German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and a collection of notes that cumulatively generate a portrait of everyday Black existence.
The other contenders are a series of letters, journal entries by, and interviews with a celebrated American sculptor, lovingly curated by her daughter, and a blend of biography and memoir by an obituarist questioning how you compress a life into the inches of a column.
Illuminating biographies
The six biographies shortlisted for the £10,000 prize are: This Is Not Miami by Fernanda Melchor, translated by Sophie Hughes (Fitzcarraldo Editions); Traces of Enayat by Iman Mersal, translated by Robin Moger (And Other Stories); Fassbinder Thousands of Mirrors by Ian Penman (Fitzcarraldo Editions); Ordinary Notes by Christina Sharpe (Daunt Books Publishing); Always Reaching: The Selected Writings of Anne Truitt by Anne Truitt (Yale University Press); and Lifescapes by Anne Wroe (Penguin).
The shortlists will be reread, annotated, and discussed by students and scholars to decide the winners of both the prizes, which will be announced by the University of Edinburgh in May.