From the highly-anticipated Pulitzer Prize to the Booker Award and the much-regarded Orwell Prize, every year several prestigious awards are bestowed to outstanding authors. Ultimate Library highlights five winners of the 2021 prestigious awards which include Damon Galgut ‘The Promise’ and Louise Erdrich ‘The Night Watchman’….
1. Booker Prize Winner : The Promise by Damon Galgut
This book charts the crash and burn of a white South African family. As the Swart family gathers for a funeral the different generations clash. The younger generation detests everything the family stand for – not least the failed promise to the Black woman who has worked for them her whole life. As the country moves on from old divisions, lost promises of more than one kind lurk beneath the surface.
2. The CILIP Carnegie Medal Winner: Look Both Ways by Jason Reynolds
When the bell rings and school is finished, the walkers are finally let loose. For ten blocks they have no one telling them what to do – no parents or teachers to supervise them! They can talk about whatever they like, such as bogies, skating and the school bus that fell from the sky. Through ten stories readers find out what really happens on the walk home from school, from the jokes to the brave challenges and the many many detours.
3. Orwell Prize for Political Writing Winner: Between Two Fires by Joshua Yaffa
A penetrating exploration of contemporary Russia in which author Joshua Yaffa meets with various politicians, entrepreneurs and artists who have built their lives in the shadow of the Putin system. Done with incredible sensitivity and depth there are profiles on Russians from across the country and in various institutions resulting in an intimate and probing portrait of a nation that is much discussed but little understood.
4. Pulitzer Prize for Fiction Winner: The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich
A novel based on the life of Erdrich’s grandfather who alongside working as a night watchman fought against the Native dispossession of rural North Dakota. A slew of memorable characters are introduced including Patrice, a headstrong and family-oriented young woman working to support her family and find her sister. Set in the impoverished Turtle Mountain Reservation, this book illuminated the best and worst of human nature.
5. Women’s Prize for Fiction Winner: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
Piranesi lives in the House and day after day he keeps a careful record of its wonders: the labyrinth of halls, the tides, and the clouds. He has regular visits with his friend, the Other, and lays tributes to the dead, but mostly he is alone. Messages begin to appear, but who could they be from? Lost texts must be found and the world Piranesi thought he knew is becoming strange and dangerous.
