A short list of short lists?

August 13, 2010 9:15 AM

I'd like to focus my next year or two of reading on award-nominated literary fiction. I'm aware of the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Awards. These two lists together could easily more than fill up that year or two, but what other prestigious national or international literary awards/prizes have a short list of nominated works?

Things like the Nobel Prize in Literature (e.g., programs that grant awards to authors) are welcome but not really what I'm looking for. No genre fiction lists, please. (I like science fiction a lot, OK? It's just not what I'm interested in here.)

Bonus points if the award's website has previous years' short lists to peruse.

posted by cog_nate to Writing & Language (15 answers total)

Best answer: IMPAC Dublin Prize
Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize
Pulitzer Prize
PEN/Faulkner Award
posted by ocherdraco at 9:23 AM on August 13, 2010

Science Fiction has The Hugo's.
posted by Hanuman1960 at 9:23 AM on August 13, 2010

No genre fiction lists, please. (I like science fiction a lot, OK? It's just not what I'm interested in here.) (cog_nate)
posted by ocherdraco at 9:24 AM on August 13, 2010

Best answer: The NYPL Young Lions Fiction Award is one example. It's restricted to fiction writers 35 and under (not sure if you have to be American, but it looks that way from the list of finalists.)
posted by escabeche at 9:28 AM on August 13, 2010

Best answer: The Giller Prize (Canadian Fiction)

Orange Prize (International, Fiction written by women)
posted by Rumple at 9:32 AM on August 13, 2010 [1 favorite]

Newbery Award. It's for Children's literature, but if you don't let that stop you, there's some good stuff in there.
posted by fings at 9:34 AM on August 13, 2010 [1 favorite]

And to follow up on the Newbery Award, I'd recommend the Printz Award, which is for Young Adult fiction.

Also, the National Book Award.

(Also, I'd like to second The Giller -- I feel like they always make good choices.)
posted by cider at 9:37 AM on August 13, 2010

Best answer: Three Percent's Best Translated Book Award is superb, and has an extensive shortlist.
posted by Kattullus at 9:56 AM on August 13, 2010 [1 favorite]

When I dig into them I always find the winners/shortlist for the IMPAC prize mentioned above to be really enjoyable.
posted by jamesonandwater at 10:29 AM on August 13, 2010

Just come in to give a second vote for the Orange Prize - I've read some great books through following that.
posted by handee at 11:20 AM on August 13, 2010

Best answer: Powells has a page for shopping Award Winners.
posted by janell at 11:41 AM on August 13, 2010

I'd like to think The Morning News' Tournament of Books is growing in prestige and reading the past competitions can be very entertaining.
posted by gladly at 12:09 PM on August 13, 2010

Yes, I find the Orange prize in general much more reliable than the book.

Australia has the Miles Franklin for literature, the Vogel for literature by younger people.

The Whitbread award is for children's literature - dunno if that qualifies as genre for you or not.

There is the Kiriyama prize for lit from the pacific rim - often throws up interesting choices, too.

And of course, the Nobel for literature...
posted by smoke at 5:46 PM on August 13, 2010

Book-er, that is.
posted by smoke at 7:08 PM on August 13, 2010

The browsing is broken at the moment, but LibraryThing's Common Knowledge section publishes winners, shortlists, and longlists for a bunch of awards. The listings are not just for the current award year.

At the moment, I can't figure out how to get into it except through my own library.
posted by janell at 1:53 PM on August 22, 2010