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Ondaatje Prize
The Dead Yard, A Story of Modern Jamaica
• Ian Thomson
CULTURAL PORTRAIT •
2011 •
PAPER
• 384 PAGES
Thomson brings alive Jamaica's racial and ethnic mix, pervasive influence of the USA, ties to Britain and the increasing disillusionment of its people in the workings of its government in this searing report.
(CRB270, $16.99) |
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The Discovery of France
• Graham Robb
HISTORY •
2008 •
PAPER
• 480 PAGES
Winner of the 2008 Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize, Robb's erudite portrait, the result of time both in the library and on his bicycle, marvelously illuminates the rural byways, history and charting of France.
(FRN770, $17.95) |
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The Hare With Amber Eyes
• Edmund De Waal
BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR •
2011 •
PAPER
• 368 PAGES
Edmund de Waal unfolds the story of his remarkable family, a grand banking family, as rich and respected as the Rothschilds, who "burned like a comet" in 19th Paris and Vienna society, and a tumultuous century in this absorbing, prize-winning tale. The renowned ceramicist Edmund de Waal became the fifth generation to inherit this small and exquisite collection of netsuke. Entranced by their beauty and mystery, he determined to trace the story of his family through the story of the collection.
(FRN941, $16.00) |
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Hearing Birds Fly
• Louisa Waugh
TRAVEL NARRATIVE •
2004 •
PAPER
• 270 PAGES
A transporting account of the people, landscapes and challenges of life in westernmost Mongolia. The author -- who spent a year in village of Tsengel teaching English -- is attuned to the diverse ethnic mix of the region with its dominant population of Muslim Kazakhs, Mongol Halkhs and Altai Tuvans. She also explores outside the village with the nomadic herders of yaks, camels. goats and sheep.
(MGL45, $17.95) |
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In the Country of Men
• Hisham Matar
LITERATURE •
2008 •
PAPER
• 256 PAGES
In this hauntingly beautiful short novel, set in Tripoli in wake of Khadafy's 1969 revolution, Hisham Matar shows the bewilderment and fear of the Libyan people through the eyes of nine-year-old Suleiman, who looks back at his childhood as an adult living in Cairo. Short-listed for the Man Booker Prize.
(NAF53, $15.00) |
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The People's Act of Love
• James Meek
LITERATURE •
2007 •
PAPER
• 391 PAGES
In this absorbing third novel, Meek draws on his experiences as a journalist in Russia and the Ukraine to evoke the isolation and changing fate of Siberia. Set in 1919 in the last days of the revolution, the book opens with a stranger wandering from the frozen tundra into an isolated town dominated by a obscure Christian sect and occupied by marooned Czech troops. With the twists and turns of the plot, Meek has fashioned a fable and literary page-turner.
(SIB52, $14.95) |
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The Places in Between
• Rory Stewart
TRAVEL NARRATIVE •
2006 •
PAPER
• 336 PAGES
Born in Hong Kong, educated at Eton and Oxford and formerly tutor to Prince William and Prince Harry, Rory Stewart ditched it all in 2000 to walk 6,000 miles from Turkey to Bangladesh. The Places in Between, which won the Ondaatje Prize, illuminates the absurdity, plight and peril of the Afghans after the fall of the Taliban. Stewart walked from Herat to Kabul in the dead of winter, depending on luck, a big dog and the kindness of strangers (along with his ability to speak Persian and his knowledge of local customs). His thrilling, poignant book is a worthy successor to Bruce Chatwin and Peter Levi's 1960s trek recounted in The Light Garden of the Angel King.
(MDE100, $14.95) |
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