The National Book Critics Circle, according to its website, "honors outstanding writing and fosters a national conversation about reading, criticism and literature. The awards recognize what the 'critics' deem "the best literature published in English in six categories—autobiography, biography, criticism, fiction, nonfiction and poetry." The awards are the only prizes that are chosen by the critics themselves.
Fiction Finalists for the 2010 National Book Critics Circle Awards
Among the finalists are two books in translation. The well-known Israeli writer, David Grossman, has written a contemporary story set in Israel. And Hans Keilson is a German who survived World War II by hiding in Holland and his story concerns this topic. Paul Murray, another of the finalists, is based in Dublin, Ireland and his 700 page novel has taken the literary world by surprise. The two American novelists among the finalists are Jennifer Egan and Jonathan Franzen.
Egan and Franzen Curiously Overlooked for 2010 National Book Awards
Perhaps inexplicably both Egan, and Franzen's novel of the century, were overlooked by the judges of the 2010 National Book Awards. They weren't among the short-listed. The award was won by Jaimy Gordon for The Lord of Misrule.
Jennifer Egan's A Visit From The Goon Squad has been hailed far and wide by literary critics and readers alike as an outstanding achievement of literary virtuosity. Egan's novel which The New York Times calls 'spikey' and 'shape-shifting' is a series of interlocking stories, including a chapter full of graphics – 70 pages of what looks like a PowerPoint presentation.
Jonathan Franzen's Freedom was so hyped that the author ended up on the cover of Time magazine. He had the UK edition of his novel recalled and his glasses stolen at the book's launch in London. To be left off the short list of National Book Award seems to clearly illustrate the somewhat temperamental and capricious nature of the literary world.
David Grossman, Hans Keilson, and Paul Murray are Among the Finalists
David Grossman's To The End Of The Land has been described as a "mediation on war, friendship and family." The novel is set in Israel with the characters engaged from different perspectives with the Israeli Army. In the middle of writing his novel, Grossman's 20-year-old son was killed two days before the end of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war. Grossman says in an interview with Rachel Cooke that going back to writing the book was '"it was the only possible place for me."
Hans Keilson, whose own life reads like a novel wrote Comedy In A Minor Key, a novella, in German when he was not yet 50. Now at the age of 101 his novel has finally been translated and published in English by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The story resonates with Keilson's own experience hiding from the Nazis. Keilson spent most of his life practicing as a psychiatrist in Holland.
Paul Murray's Skippy Dies is the longest of the books in contention and took the author seven years to write. Murray is an Irish novelist and this his second novel is a comic story set in a Dublin boys' boarding school. Murray's novel was listed by both Time magazine and The New York Times as top reads for 2010.
Christine Breen-Williams - Writer, Homeopath, Gardener Christine has a MA in Literature from University College, Dublin and is a published writer.
