Very strong shortlist for leading prize for memoir
12th July 2011
English PEN today announces the shortlist for the 2011 PEN/Ackerley Prize for Memoir:
John Burnside - Waking Up in Toytown ( Cape )
Edmund de Waal - The Hare with Amber Eyes (Chatto)
Michael Frayn - My Father’s Fortune (Faber)
Jackie Kay - Red Dust Road (Picador)
The PEN/Ackerley Prize is judged by Georgina Hammick, Francis King, Peter Parker (chair) and Colin Spencer. The award is given to a literary autobiography of outstanding merit, written by an author of British nationality and published in the United Kingdom in the previous year. Past winners include Alan Bennett, Jenny Diski, Lorna Sage, Blake Morrison, Barry Humphries and Margaret Forster.
Peter Parker, Chair of the Judges, commented:
‘Memoir and autobiography are constantly evolving forms, and the judges had a particularly wide range of books from which to select a shortlist and winner this year. As a result, our longlist was unusually long, comprising books that were classic traditional examples of the genre alongside those that took a more oblique or unusual approach. After a great deal of discussion, we produced a shortlist that was unusually short, four books rather than the more usual six. It is, however, a very strong one.’
For more information please visit www.englishpen.org or contact Sarah Hesketh, Assistant Director: sarah@englishpen.org
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