Naguib Mahfouz lives in Egypt
TOMAS ELOY MARTINEZ
Tomas Eloy Martinez was born in 1934 in Argentina. During the military dictatorship, he lived in exile in Venezuela where he wrote his first three books, all of which were republished in Argentina in 1983, in the first months of democracy. During a fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for International Scholars, Martinez wrote The Peron Novel, which was published in 1988. Currently he is a professor and director of the Latin American Program at Rutgers University.
Tomas Eloy Martinez lives in America
KENZABURO OE
A novelist, essayist, and short story writer, Oe was born in 1935 on the Japanese island of Shikoku. After a childhood shaped by family storytelling and war, he attended Tokyo University and studied French literature. A prolific writer, Oe addresses the themes of family, childhood, and war.
At age 23, Oe published his first novel, Pluck the Flowers, Gun the Kids. That same year, he won the Akutagawa Prize for The Catch, a short novel about a small boy’s relationship with an African-American pilot captured in his village. A Personal Matter was inspired by his own family’s experiences in raising a mentally-challenged child. The work earned him the Shinohosha Literary Prize. Hiroshima Notes (1963) analyzes the ethical implications of atomic war, informed by his interviews with doctors and patients who suffered the effects of the bombing. His 1967 novel Football in the First Year of Mannen received the Tanizaki Prize. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1994.
Kenzaburo Oe lives in Japan
CYNTHIA OZICK
Cynthia Ozick was born in Manhattan and has lived in the New York City area most of her life. She attended Hunter College High School, graduated Phi Beta Kappa from New York University with honors in English, and holds a master’s degree from Ohio State University. She lives in Westchester County and is married to Bernard Hallote, a retired lawyer.
She was a finalist for the National Book Award for her novel, The Puttermesser Papers, which was named one of the top ten books of the year by the New York Times Book Review, Publishers Weekly, and the Los Angeles Times Book Review. The essay collection Quarrel & Quandry, won the 2001 National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism. Ozick’s work has been translated into thirteen languages worldwide. Her novella The Shawl was produced for the stage in New York, directed by Sidney Lumet.
Her many awards include a Guggenheim fellowship and the Mildred and Harold Strauss Living Award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. She was the first writer to be given the Rea Award for the Short Story.
Article comments
1 - Aaman
What a fine list of novelists - one notes the absence of Salman Rushdie.
Finalists I think, will be:
Saul Bellow
Gunther Grass
Doris Lessing
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
John Updike,
For the winner, I propose Senor Marquez
Beautiful book covers, Eric
2 - Rodney Welch
So the Booker people pony up cash for one more useless literary award, a lifetime achievement honor to one of a host of usual suspects. Who cares?
3 - Aaman
Actually the money will come from the Man group, one of the largest hedge-fund outfits around. These awards are no more 'booker' than a hooker.
I guess this will become a second-chance Nobel Prize
4 - Eric Olsen
I would say the legitimacy of something like this is taht for most people on earth, the "usual suspects" are hardly household names, even if some are in many quarters, and anything that draws attention to fine literature for the general public can only be a good and worthwhile thing. Just putting this together, I kept saying "Damn, I should read more of these people."
5 - Rodney Welch
"Most people on earth" don't care and prizes like this aren't going to make them care -- which is fine; there's no reason they should. All awards are just p.r., more than anything; this one is superfluous besides.
6 - Eric Olsen
but some are influenced and educated by them and that is their value. PR isn't a bad thing, per se.
7 - Rodney Welch
Well fine -- let's have a "Best Male Writer Past the Age of 60" Award. A "Best Living Female Author Award." A "Best Young Female Writer With the Nicest Can" award. A "Best Novel Sold to Hollywood" award. A "Best Novel That Will Never Be Sold to Hollywood" award. A "Best Non-Fiction Asian Writer Living in America" award. A"Best Writer Who Has Never Been in My Kitchen" award. Then we can all just sit back as people throw out their video games and disconnect their TiVO's and pour into a headlong mad rush to the local B&N, tumbling ass over elbows to get to a classic re-issue of "Henderson the Rain King." Then they'll all go home, read to page 4, put it on their shelf, talk about how great it is at cocktail parties, and we can all be thankful for the enormous boost in literacy. Yeah right.
8 - Eric Olsen
that was a bit cynical, don't you think Rodney? I vote for the "Best Young Female Writer With the Nicest Can" award.
9 - Maggie Cohen
I vote for A.B.Yehoshua,for the impact of his work.