The Tragic has been aroused from a slight depression caused by a run of disappointing novels, a sagging bank balance and a population explosion of snails on the Golden Acre, with the news that Nam Le's (left), The Boat, has won the £60,000 Dylan Thomas Prize.A true international citizen, Nam Le was born in Vietnam, raised in Melbourne Australia, practised as a corporate attorney for brief period before 'chuffing' off to New York where he currently serves as the fiction editor on the Harvard Review. According to British media he is intending to relocate to the UK next year- Tragic hopes that he's informed his current employer or maybe it's just the British establishing a claim. At least with his law pedigree no-one is going to give the rough end of the pineapple with his contracts...
At a mere 29 years old, he obviously has a bright future ahead. Tragic had the briefest envy pang when he dwelt, albeit for a nano-second, on a life not pursued. He didn't allow himself more that a minute in pondering what he would do with £60,000 - at current exchange rates he could probably buy his home state of New South Wales in Australia which is experiencing a few liquidity problems. On second thoughts he would probably just pay the tuition fees for little Nirvana's ceramic lessons and bury the rest in a remote corner of the family estate.
The exciting thing about The Boat winning is that it is a collection of short stories which is seldom recognised at the highest level of literary awards. Nam Le was also recently named as one of the National "Five Under 35 Authors". Those canny old National folks- they are good at spotting the young uns' .
The marvellous Australian author David Malouf's short story collection, The Complete Stories, is in the running for the inaugural Australia-Asia Literary Award due shortly. Perhaps, with such a busy schedule and large reading lists for judges, a trend could be emerging where short story collections have their day in the sun as they are far easier to read in bite sized chunks. With the declining economic fortunes of many, the books could perhaps be serialised and sell at $2 a month for a year?
Nothing like a big pot of money to grab a bit of attention and the Dylan Thomas is most certainly the richest prize for young writers at the moment. Money aside, the short and long lists in the Prizes' first couple of years have certainly identified a strong stable of younger writers able to engage us. Perhaps the new generation can even shed some light, through their art, into what the hell is going on- in nice easy to chew digestible tasty pieces for we many 'confused ones'. Having crossed the half-century mark, Tragic realises that he was far more knowledgeable when he was under-35 than he is now.
Whilst some concerns remain about the notion of a literary prize comparing poetry, with short stories, with full length novels, or aardvarks and apples as he put it recently, he is generally enamoured with the young Dylan T prize at this stage, as he still is with the work of the bard himself. Ahh. Young love.
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