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Norway's Petterson bags 100,000 euro book prize
Thu Jun 14, 2007 8:14 AM EDT

By Jonathan Saul

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Norwegian author Per Petterson and his translator Anne Born won the world's richest literary prize for a single work of fiction in English on Thursday for the novel "Out Stealing Horses."

Petterson collected 100,000 euros ($133,000), of which Born will get 25,0000, for his novel focusing on a solitary 67-year-old Norwegian widower whose chance encounter with a character from his youth triggers painful memories.

"It is a very happy man that stands before you. A surprised man," Petterson said after Dublin's Lord Mayor named him as winner of the 12th InternationalIMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

"It seems with this book I am the boy with the golden trousers and every time I put my hand in my pockets I pick up a golden coin," he said. "It is so cool."

IMPAC described "Out Stealing Horses," which had already won the 2006 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, as "a poignant and moving tale of a changing perspective on the world ... and of nostalgia for a simpler way of life."

It fended off competition from 7 other books including "Slow Man" by South African Nobel Laureate J.M. Coetzee; "Shalimar the Clown" from Indian-born British writer Salman Rushdie and "A Long Long Way" by Ireland's Sebastian Barry.

Two books from British authors had made the shortlist: "Arthur and George" by Julian Barnes and "The Short Day Dying" from Peter Hobbs. U.S. authors Cormac McCarthy and Jonathan Safran Foer had also been in the last eight for their novels "No Country For Old Men" and "Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close."

The short-listed titles were selected from 138 novels that were nominated by 169 libraries from 49 countries and the winner chosen by a panel of five international judges.

"I felt the book took me back to my childhood," Lebanese novelist and judge Hanan al-Shaykh told Reuters.

"I thought it had everything: believing, the war, deceit, the unravelling of secrets by adults. If the translation is this good, the book in Norwegian must be a master piece."

Belfast-born poet Gerald Dawe said it had been a strong short-list.

"'Out Stealing Horses' piped past the post because it is such an extraordinarily artful book," he said following the award ceremony at Dublin's City Hall.

"It is a wonderfully subtle book. In the background, shadowing it with an almost ghostly narrative, there is the history of how war impacts on families in very different ways."

--
Rockville High
writers win competition

By Joseph Laflamme / For the Journal Inquirer
Manchester, CT / USA
July 14, 2007

Two students at Rockville High School have come out as winners in the IMPAC-Connecticut State University Young Writer’s Competition.

Melanie Lieberman, a sophomore, was awarded the state grand prize for prose for her short story "Mashed Potato Boy and My Fifth Grade Romance."

Hannah Ojard, a junior, was awarded $1,000 as Tolland County poetry winner for her poem "Aunt Karen," beating out 13 poetry finalists from Tolland County.

Given that she prefers writing short stories to writing poetry, Ojard said, she was pleasantly surprised when she found out she had won $1,000 for a poem she based on a real-life conversation with her aunt.

"I just couldn’t believe I actually won," Ojard, 16, said. "I’m really not a poetry kind of person."

Lieberman, 16, won an all-expenses-paid trip to Dublin, Ireland, where she is attending a weeklong young writer’s festival and workshop and other events connected with the Dublin Writers Festival and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

As the Tolland County winner in prose, Lieberman also was awarded $1,000, competing against eight finalists.

The IMPAC-CSU Young Writers Trust annually awards $1,000 prizes to two finalists from each county, one in prose and one in poetry.

There is one grand prize winner each for prose and for poetry.

Lieberman said she started crying at the statewide awards dinner June 1 when James B. Irwin Sr., founder of the IMPAC Young Writers Award Program, announced she had won the top prize for prose.

"When they called my name I was sort of in shock," Lieberman said. "Your friends and your family can say they like what you write, but to have recognition on that level felt amazing," she said.

At the awards dinner, Irwin and Eastern Connecticut State University Vice President of Academic Affairs Dimitrios S. Pachis presented Lieberman with two plane tickets, an itinerary, and a packet of travel materials for her trip to Dublin, said IMPAC-CSU Chairman Andy Thibault.

IMPAC-CSU judge Ronald Winter said the winning prose entry, which Lieberman said was loosely based on an experience in elementary school, stood out because of its author’s mature perspective and wit.

"There was a maturity about it that I found very compelling," Winter, an author and former journalist, said. "I thought it was head and shoulders over the other pieces I read."

Both winners found out about the contest through their creative writing teacher, Victoria Nordlund, who said she encouraged the students to submit their class work to the contest.

The IMPAC-CSU Young Writer’s Trust has given more than $150,000 to students in Connecticut in connection with its writing contest since it was established in 1998, Thibault said. About 4,000 students have participated in the program since its inception, he said.

Lieberman said she writes frequently outside the classroom and aspires to be a writer. She hopes to attend Emerson College in Boston.

Ojard said she aspires to be an English teacher or social worker and also hopes to attend college in Boston.

IMPAC, or Improved Management Productivity and Control, now known as Integrated Control Systems, is an international company based in Florida that specializes in management productivity improvement. Irwin is its Florida chairman.

The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award involves libraries from throughout the world and is open to books written in any language. The award — the largest in the world — is a partnership between the Dublin City Council, the Municipal Government of Dublin City, and IMPAC.

The literary award winner was announced today: Norwegian author Per Petterson and his translator, Anne Born, for the novel "Out Stealing Horses."

Petterson received $133,00. Of that amount, Born will get about $33,000.
--

Hartford Courant
Sunday Arts Section
June 10, 2007
Page G2
www.courant.com

Ireland Bound


Now that you've won the 2007 IMPAC Connecticut State University Young Writers competition, Melanie Lieberman and Maya Polan, where are you going?

No, not to Disney World. To Dublin.

Lieberman, 16, of Vernon, who attends Rockville High School, and Polan,18, of New Haven, who attends Educational Center for the Arts, were named top state winners in the prose and poetry categories, respectively, at the Young Writers Trust's annual dinner June 1 [at the Litchfield Inn]

Lieberman's story is "Mashed Potato Boy and My Fifth Grade Romance." Polan's poem is "Unruly Sonnets Written in a Midwestern Key."

Two winners in each category from each county have already won $1,000 prizes. The two top winners were also awarded all-expenses-paid trips to Dublin with a parent for events at the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and Dublin Writers Festival.

About 4,000 high school students have taken part in the program, which began in 1998. More than $150,000 in prizes have been awarded.

IMPAC, a productivity firm, endows the literary award of 100,000 euros, the world's largest award for a single work of fiction. The 2007 winner will be announced Thursday in Dublin from among eight finalists selected from 138 nominations by 169 libraries from 49 countries and 129 cities; 28 titles were translations from 15 non-English languages.

The finalists are: "A Long, Long Way," by Sebastian Barry, "Arthur & George," by Julian Barnes, "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close," by Jonathan Safran Foer, "No Country For Old Men," by Cormac McCarthy "Out Stealing Horses," by Per Petterson, "Shalimar the Clown," by Salman Rushdie, "Slow Man," by JM Coetzee and "The Short Dying Day," by Peter Hobbs.