Whoops! Missed the results of the fairly newish UK based Muslim Writers Award and failed to blog (the verb to blog: I blog, you blog etc) the Orange. Fancy. Apologies to my fellow Book Award Tragics. Tragic can only plead a delightful, but unusual large share of caring for his many young Angel Children as Mrs. T. pursues her profession. Ah the glamour of a Renaissance Man's Life.................. Great chance to catch-up on some of the fantastic books the children are getting through for a MS Readathon they are involved in though.Anyhow, Kamila Shamsie's (left) , Burnt Shadows has won the 2009 UK's Muslim Writers' Award Fiction prize and Shelina Zahra Janmohamed's , Love in a Headscarf: Muslim woman seeks the One, the Non-fiction category.
Burnt Shadows is highly recommended and the high standard bodes well for the prize. Tragic was sad that it didn't win the recently announced Orange Prize for which it was shortlisted as he thoroughly enjoyed the read. Mind you, many appear to find the Orange winner, US author Marilynne Robinson's Home , very engaging . It was described by the judges, as “a kind, wise, enriching novel, exquisitely crafted.” Maybe so, but Tragic found it's precursor, the 2005 Pulitzer Prize winner Gilead, hard going - a little like wading up a treacle creek. As Home revisits the setting and some of the characters from her previous work, he is not rushing out to buy it just yet.
Tragic has had an uneasy relationship with Orange Prize Winners in general in recent years and has to go back to the 2002 winner Ann Patchett's Bel Canto for his last truly satisfying read (maybe 2006 winner Zadie Smith's - On Beauty if in the right mood).
At least with Home winning this year, the judges have some International pedigree 'back-up' as the book was previously shortlisted for the USA heavyweight prizes, the National Book Critics Circle and the US National. Some of the other winners in recent years would certainly have struggled in such company.
Winning and shortlisted book details for the Muslim Writers below. Links to Blackwell's (UK & USA) data-base. Tragic maintains a brief summary page for The Muslim Writers' Award at Literary Awards UK as he does for the Orange for those who would like to have a 'squizz' at the shortlisted book details. Will post the Orange winner and shortlist book details in a separate post as all a bit unwieldy.
Ciao for now.
Current reads: Permaculture : A Designers Manual, Bill Mollinson.
The Complete Stories, David Malouf . Stanley: the Impossible Life of Africa's Greatest Explorer by Tim Jeal and The Body Artist by Don DeLillo
Muslim Writers awards
The annual Muslim Writers Awards recognises the breadth and quality of literary talent within the UK’s Muslim community.
There are categories for Fiction, nonfiction, Journalism, Unpublished Poetry, Unpublished Novels, Unpublished Short Stories, Unpublished – Children’s stories and Under-16s Categories. The latter includes a poetry and short story category and is broken down by age categories; 8-10, 11-13 and 14-16. Further details are at the awards website.
2009 Winners and Shortlists
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Fiction
Winner: Kamila Shamsie, Burnt Shadows, Bloomsbury 
In a prison cell in the US, a man stands trembling, naked, fearfully waiting to be shipped to Guantanamo Bay. How did it come to this? he wonders August 9th, 1945, Nagasaki. Hiroko Tanaka steps out onto her veranda, taking in the view of the terraced slopes leading up to the sky. Wrapped in a kimono with three black cranes swooping across the back, she is twenty-one, in love with the man she is to marry, Konrad Weiss. In a split second, the world turns white. In the next, it explodes with the sound of fire and the horror of realisation. In the numbing aftermath of a bomb that obliterates everything she has known, all that remains are the bird-shaped burns on her back, an indelible reminder of the world she has lost. In search of new beginnings, she travels to Delhi two years later. There she walks into the lives of Konrad's half-sister, Elizabeth, her husband James Burton, and their employee Sajjad Ashraf, from whom she starts to learn Urdu.. More
Robin Yassin-kassab, The Road from Damascus , Hamish Hamilton - It is summer 2001 and Sami Traifi is struggling. His wife Muntaha has just announced that she is taking up the hijab. Furious with Muntaha, he finds himself embarking on a spontaneous quest for meaning and fulfillment, but all too soon his search... More
Daniyal Mueenuddin, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders , Bloomsbury -A powerful collection of linked stories about the entwined lives of masters and servants set in Pakistan The linked stories in In Other Rooms, Other Wonders illuminate a place and a people as they describe the overlapping worlds of an extended... More
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Tahir Shah, In Arabian Nights , Bantam - Collects traditional stories of Morocco that are recounted by an eccentric cast of characters: from master masons who work only at night to Sufi wise men who write for soap operas and Tuareg guides addicted to reality TV. Shortly after the 2005... More
Farahad Zama, The Marriage Bureau for Rich People
Judges: Miranda Mckearney, Qaisra Shahraz and Zarah Hussain
Non-Fiction
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Winner: Shelina Zahra Janmohamed, Love in a Headscarf: Muslim woman seeks the One , Aurum Press -
Shelina is keeping a very surprising secret under her headscarf - she wants to fall in love.
Torn between the Buxom Aunties, romantic comedies and mosque Imams, she decides to follow the arranged-marriage route to finding Mr Right, Muslim-style. Shelina's journey begins as a search for the One, but along the way she also discovers her faith and herself.
A memoir with a hilarious twist from one of Britain's leading female Muslim writers, Love in a Headscarf is an entertaining, fresh and unmissable insight into what it means to be a young British Muslim woman More
Shahzad Aziz, In the Land of the Ayatollahs Tupac Shakur Is King: Reflections from Iran and the Arab World Amal Press- Using the cities and culture of the Middle East as a backdrop, this study explores issues within the Arab world and in its relations with the West. Serious debate is interspersed with witty travel dialogue to discuss many issues facing the Eastern... More
Fethiye Cetin, My Grandmother: A Memoir , Verso- When Fethiye Cetin was growing up in the small Turkish town of Maden, she knew her grandmother as a happy and universally respected Muslim housewife. It would be decades before her grandmother told her the truth: that she was by birth a Christian... More
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Yasmin Hai, The Making of Mr Hai's Daughter: Becoming British The Making of Mr Hai’s Daughter: Becoming British, Virago - With the humour and passion of Hanif Kureishi and Meera Syal - an amazing story about identity and roots and a daughter's understanding of her father Mr Hai arrived in London in 1964. But, while becoming British via a passport had been... More
Tariq Modood, Multiculturalism (Themes for the 21st Century Series) , Polity Press- KEN LANGDON has worked for many major computer companies world-wide, including Hewlett Packard and DEC, and is presently the non-executive chairman for SofTools, a supplier of electronic Integrated Support Systems, and Glenhurst Ltd... More
Judges: Dr Claire Chambers, Dr Tahir Abbas, Hannah Westland and Dele Fatunla
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