In new book, Murakami explores walled city and shadows
April 13, 2023 GMTTOKYO (AP) — Haruki Murakami wrote a story of a walled city when he was fresh off his debut. More than four decades later, as a seasoned and acclaimed novelist, he gave it a new life as “The City and Its Uncertain Walls.”
Yiyin Li’s ‘The Book of Goose’ among PEN/Faulkner finalists
March 8, 2023 GMTNEW YORK (AP) — Yiyun Li's novel about the friendship of two girls in post-World War II France, “The Book of Goose,” and Dionne Irving's “The Islands,” a story collection set everywhere from London to New Jersey, are among the finalists for the PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction.
Review: Detective work in bio leads to real Mickey Spillane
February 6, 2023 GMT“Spillane: King of Pulp Fiction” by Max Allan Collins and James L. Traylor (Mysterious Press)
In fiction an “unreliable narrator” can't be trusted as he or she spins the story at hand. In real life the term “fabulist” is used by those seeking a softer word than “liar.”
Percival Everett, Ling Ma among nominees for critics prizes
February 1, 2023 GMTNEW YORK (AP) — Fiction by Percival Everett and Ling Ma, nonfiction by Annie Proulx and biographies of George Balanchine and J. Edgar Hoover are among the finalists for National Book Critics Circle awards.
Julie Otsuka, Ed Yong win Carnegie Medals for Excellence
January 30, 2023 GMTNEW YORK (AP) — Novelist Julie Otsuka has strong memories of libraries from her childhood California — the bike rides with her best friend to the local branch; the soft, firm sound of librarians closing books; the shopping bags she and her friend would fill with science fiction and other stories.
Didion-Dunne archives acquired by New York Public Library
January 27, 2023 GMTNEW YORK (AP) — The archives of the late Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne, spanning from letters and wedding pictures to manuscripts and screenplay drafts, have been acquired by the New York Public Library.
Jesmyn Ward novel ‘Let Us Descend’ to be published Oct. 3
January 27, 2023 GMTNEW YORK (AP) — The next novel by Jesmyn Ward, the two-time National Book Award winner, is the story of an enslaved teenage girl that the publisher is calling a blend of magical realism, historical narrative and Dante's “Inferno.”
New ‘Buzz Books’ compilation includes Nancy Horan, MLK bio
January 17, 2023 GMTNEW YORK (AP) — Fiction by Elizabeth Acevedo, Nancy Horan and Abraham Verghese, and a new biography of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. are among dozens of upcoming works excerpted in a free e-book compilation.
Russell Banks, praised author of ‘Cloudsplitter,’ dies at 82
January 8, 2023 GMTNEW YORK (AP) — Russell Banks, an award-winning fiction writer who rooted such novels as “Affliction” and “The Sweet Hereafter” in the wintry, rural communities of his native Northeast and imagined the dreams and downfalls of everyone from modern blue-collar workers to the radical abolitionist John Brown in “Cloudsplitter," has died.
British novelist, screenwriter Fay Weldon dies at 91
January 4, 2023 GMTLONDON (AP) — British author Fay Weldon, known for her sharp wit and acerbic observations about women’s experiences and sexual politics in novels including “The Life And Loves Of A She-Devil," has died, her family said Wednesday.
Review: India’s Partition in deeply human debut novel
January 3, 2023 GMT“The Book of Everlasting Things” by Aanchal Malhotra (Flatiron)
Star-crossed lovers. Intoxicating scents. Old war journals containing ghosts and secrets. What more could you want in a work of historical fiction?
French Nobel Laureate says men must change attitudes now
December 6, 2022 GMTSTOCKHOLM (AP) — French author Annie Ernaux who won this year's Nobel Prize for literature, said Tuesday that men need to change their attitudes now, before women attain full equality with them.
“Because if men do not become aware of their body, their way of life, their way of behaving and what motivates them, no real liberation for women will happen,” she told a press conference ahead of the Nobel Prizes award ceremony on Saturday.
Tess Gunty, Imani Perry among National Book Awards winners
November 17, 2022 GMTNEW YORK (AP) — Tess Gunty’s “The Rabbit Hutch,” a sweeping debut novel set in a low-income housing community in Indiana, has won the National Book Award for fiction. The 30-year-old Gunty was among three writers nominated for their first published books.
6 popular Black authors co-write teen romance ‘Whiteout’
November 12, 2022 GMTNEW YORK (AP) — Dhonielle Clayton is not just a bestselling author of young adult fiction. She's an organizer, a former teacher and a founder of the grassroots publishing movement We Need Diverse Books.
Review: New novel explores the life-changing power of art
November 7, 2022 GMT“Now Is Not the Time to Panic,” by Kevin Wilson (Ecco)
For the past 25 years the bestselling author Kevin Wilson has repeated to himself a semi-poetical, semi-nonsensical phrase that evokes the self-mythologizing bravado of outlaw musicians: “The edge is a shantytown filled with gold seekers.
Booker Prize winner lets ghosts of Sri Lanka’s past speak
November 2, 2022 GMTLONDON (AP) — Shehan Karunatilaka wrote his Booker Prize-winning novel “The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida” to give voice to Sri Lanka’s dead. He hoped the ghosts of the country’s bloody past could speak to its troubled present.
Review: Cormac McCarthy returns with cryptic ’The Passenger’
October 31, 2022 GMT“The Passenger” by Cormac McCarthy (Alfred A. Knopf)
It’s been 16 years since Cormac McCarthy released “The Road” and won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, cementing his reputation as a master American novelist.
Hernan Diaz, Tanaïs among winners of $50,000 Kirkus Prize
October 28, 2022 GMTNEW YORK (AP) — Hernan Diaz's novel “Trust,” a postmodern take on wealth, power and reality set in the 1920s and 1930s, has won the Kirkus Prize for fiction.
The awards, presented by the trade publication Kirkus Reviews, include $50,000 cash prizes for winners in fiction, nonfiction and young readers' literature.
Novel by Sri Lanka’s Shehan Karunatilaka wins Booker Prize
October 19, 2022 GMTLONDON (AP) — Writer Shehan Karunatilaka won the prestigious Booker Prize for fiction on Monday for “The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida,” a satirical “afterlife noir” set during Sri Lanka’s brutal civil war.
The CW’s ‘The Winchesters’ is a ‘Supernatural’ origin story
October 11, 2022 GMTWhen Drake Rodger and Meg Donnelly, stars of the new series “ The Winchesters ” on The CW, attended their first Comic-Con last weekend in New York, they were accompanied by security guards.
Review: WWII novel sets high bar for historical fiction
October 10, 2022 GMT“Cradles of the Reich” by Jennifer Coburn (Sourcebooks Landmark)
Gundi, Irma and Hilde all find themselves at a Lebensborn Society house for future mothers who are deemed to be racially fit. Each woman is there for the same reason: to usher life into the world.
Russia adds popular rapper, writer to “foreign agent” list
October 8, 2022 GMTThe Russian government on Friday designated a chart-topping rapper as a “foreign agent,”a label that has been widely seen as part of authorities' efforts to muzzle critical voices.
Oxxxymiron, whose real name is Miron Fyodorov, was added to the justice ministry's “foreign agent” list alongside Dmitry Glukhovsky, a veteran science-fiction writer, and Alyona Popova, a prominent feminist and one-time face of Russia's campaign for a domestic violence law.
French writer Annie Ernaux awarded Nobel Prize in literature
October 6, 2022 GMTPARIS (AP) — French author Annie Ernaux won this year’s Nobel Prize in literature Thursday for blending fiction and autobiography in books that fearlessly mine her experiences as a working-class woman to explore life in France since the 1940s.
Gayl Jones, Tommie Smith among National Book Award finalists
October 4, 2022 GMTNEW YORK (AP) — Gayl Jones' “The Birdcatcher,” a short, lyrical novel about a writer's trip to Ibiza and the gifted, unstable couple she stays with, is a National Book Award finalist for fiction.
James Patterson donates to PEN America, Howard University
September 27, 2022 GMTNEW YORK (AP) — Howard University, PEN America and Scholastic Book Clubs are among the latest recipients of donations from James Patterson, the bestselling author who has given over $100 million to literary and literacy programs.
Hilary Mantel, author of ‘Wolf Hall’ Tudor saga, dies at 70
September 23, 2022 GMTLONDON (AP) — Hilary Mantel, the Booker Prize-winning author who turned Tudor power politics into page-turning fiction in the acclaimed “Wolf Hall” trilogy of historical novels, has died, her publisher said Friday.
Former FBI head James Comey has deal for two crime novels
September 20, 2022 GMTNEW YORK (AP) — Former FBI Director James Comey is on a career path both new and familiar — crime fiction.
Comey has a deal to write two novels for The Mysterious Press, an imprint of Penzler Publishers.
Review: ‘Less Is Lost,’ a funny and affecting U.S. road trip
September 19, 2022 GMT“Less Is Lost,” by Andrew Sean Greer (Little, Brown)
Andrew Sean Greer's “Less Is Lost” is the highly anticipated follow up to his 2018 Pulitzer Prize winning novel “Less,” a satire about an American abroad who travels the globe from Mexico to Germany to Japan to avoid going to an ex-boyfriend's wedding.
Novelist Gayl Jones is among National Book Award finalists
September 16, 2022 GMTNEW YORK (AP) — Novelist Gayl Jones is a fiction nominee for the National Book Award, the rare established name on a list of 10 that features eight debut works of fiction.
Jones was cited Friday for “The Birdcatcher,” an exploration of race, art and marriage in which a Black American writer journeys to the island of Ibiza and stays with her married friends, one of whom is trying to kill the other.
Michelle Zauner, Gayl Jones receive American Book Awards
September 8, 2022 GMTNEW YORK (AP) — “Crying In H Mart” memoirist Michelle Zauner, novelist Gayl Jones and author-journalist Francisco Goldman are among the winners of the 43rd annual American Book Awards, presented by Ishmael Reed's Before Columbus Foundation.
’1619 Project,′ ‘Books of Jacob’ are among Kirkus nominees
September 8, 2022 GMTNEW YORK (AP) — Fiction by Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk and the book-length edition of the “1619 Project” are among the nominees for Kirkus Prizes, $50,000 honors given in three competitive categories.
US authors Strout, Everett among Booker Prize finalists
September 7, 2022 GMTLONDON (AP) — American authors Elizabeth Strout and Percival Everett are up against writers from Britain, Ireland, Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka as finalists for the prestigious Booker Prize for fiction.
Strout’s symphony of everyday lives “Oh William!” and Everett’s powerful novel about racism and police violence, “The Trees,” are on a shortlist announced Tuesday for the 50,000 pound ($58,000) prize.
Stuart Woods, author of Stone Barrington novels, dead at 84
July 27, 2022 GMTHARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Stuart Woods, an author of more than 90 novels, many featuring the character of lawyer-investigator Stone Barrington, has died. He was 84.
Woods passed away in his sleep on Friday, July 22, at his home in Litchfield County, Connecticut, his publicist, Katie Grinch, said Wednesday.
Elizabeth Strout, Leila Mottley up for Booker fiction prize
July 27, 2022 GMTLONDON (AP) — Best-selling American writers Karen Joy Fowler, Elizabeth Strout and Leila Mottley are among 13 authors in the running for the prestigious Booker Prize for fiction.
Fowler’s novel about Abraham Lincoln’s assassin, “Booth,” Strout’s symphony of everyday lives “Oh William!” and Mottley's Oakland-set debut “Nightcrawling” are among six books by Americans on the longlist for the 50,000 pound ($60,000) prize.
Author Jesmyn Ward wins Library of Congress fiction prize
June 30, 2022 GMTThe 2022 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction has gone to Jesmyn Ward, who at 45, is the youngest person to receive the library’s fiction award and is being honored for her lifetime of work examining racism and social injustice.
Review: Grisham shortens things up in ‘Sparring Partners’
May 31, 2022 GMT“Sparring Partners” by John Grisham (Doubleday)
Since bursting on the scene with the runaway hit “A Time to Kill” in 1989, John Grisham has been one of the most reliable fiction writers alive, churning out a bestselling novel almost every year.
Candidate for Maryland governor tests positive for COVID-19
May 30, 2022 GMTBALTIMORE (AP) — Wes Moore, a Democratic candidate for governor of Maryland, announced Monday that he has tested positive for the COVID-19 virus.
Moore, 43, who is seeking the Democratic party's nomination, revealed on Twitter that he is infected but asymptomatic.
Indian novel ‘Tomb of Sand’ wins International Booker Prize
May 26, 2022 GMTLONDON (AP) — Indian writer Geetanjali Shree and American translator Daisy Rockwell won the International Booker Prize on Thursday for “Tomb of Sand,” a vibrant novel with a boundary-crossing 80-year-old heroine.
Yiyun Li wins PEN/Malamud Award for short stories
May 16, 2022 GMTNEW YORK (AP) — Author Yiyun Li has received one of the top honors for short story writers, the PEN/Malamud Award for “exceptional achievement.”
Li, 49, has published the collections “Gold Boy” and “A Thousand Years of Good Prayers,” along with five novels and two nonfiction books.
Anthony Veasna So wins posthumous award for LGBTQ fiction
May 11, 2022 GMTNEW YORK (AP) — Robert Jones Jr.'s historical novel “The Prophets” and Anthony Veasna So's posthumous debut story collection “Afterparties” are among the winners of the 34th annual Triangle Awards, given for outstanding LGBTQ literature.
Prize-winning ‘Netanyahus’ author says it’s also about Trump
May 10, 2022 GMTJERUSALEM (AP) — "The Netanyahus," which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction this week, recounts a very funny anecdote about Israel's famous family that unfolds more than a half-century before one of them became it's longest-serving prime minister.
Louise Erdrich among 6 finalists for literary Women’s Prize
April 27, 2022 GMTLONDON (AP) — The 23rd novel by acclaimed American author Louise Erdrich and an adult fiction debut by Trinidadian stand-up comedian Lisa Allen-Agostini were named finalists on Wednesday for the 30,000-pound ($38,000) Women’s Prize for fiction.
Nobelist Louise Glück to publish her first prose narrative
April 25, 2022 GMTNEW YORK (AP) — Louise Glück's next book was as unexpected for her as it will likely be for the Nobel laureate’s readers.
After more than 10 poetry collections and two books of essays, including such prize winners as “The Wild Iris” and “Faithful and Virtuous Night,” the 79-year-old writer has completed her first prose narrative, to come out in October.
Texas author who set series of novels along border dies
April 22, 2022 GMTDALLAS (AP) — Romeo Rolando Hinojosa-Smith, an award-winning Texas author who began in the 1970s writing a series of novels that told the stories of people living in a fictional county along the Texas-Mexico border, has died.
Review: Eye-opening historical fiction ‘Take My Hand’
April 11, 2022 GMT“Take My Hand” by Dolen Perkins-Valdez (Berkley)
Newly graduated from Tuskegee, Civil Townsend takes on her first job as a nurse at the Montgomery Family Planning Clinic in 1973. She’s ready to make a difference and help the women in her community, but her very first case tests her in a way that will haunt her for decades to come.
‘The Eagle Has Landed’ author Jack Higgins dead at 92
April 10, 2022 GMTLONDON (AP) — British author Jack Higgins, who wrote “The Eagle Has Landed” and other bestselling thrillers and espionage novels, has died. He was 92.
Publisher HarperCollins said that Higgins died at his home on the English Channel island of Jersey surrounded by his family.
Alice Walker to be featured at Mississippi Book Festival
April 9, 2022 GMTJACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Pulitzer Prize winning author Alice Walker has been tapped to speak at this year's Mississippi Book Festival.
This year marks the 40th anniversary release of Walker's acclaimed novel, “The Color Purple.” It was first published in 1982 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction the following year.
Novelist Megha Majumdar among winners of Whiting Award
April 7, 2022 GMTNEW YORK (AP) — Megha Majumdar, whose novel “A Burning” was among the most talked about debuts of recent years, is among 10 recipients of a Whiting Award for emerging authors. Fiction writers Claire Boyles and Nana Nkweti, poets Ina Cariño and Anthony Cody and nonfiction writers Anaïs Duplan and Alexis Pauline Gumbs also will receive $50,000 each in prize money.
Rabih Alameddine wins PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction
April 5, 2022 GMTNEW YORK (AP) — Rabih Alameddine’s “The Wrong End of the Telescope," a novel written in the second person about a transgender doctor named Mina who works in a refugee camp for Syrians, has won the PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction.
Reissues planned for ‘Mambo Kings’ and other Hijuelos novels
March 24, 2022 GMTNEW YORK (AP) — From the moment the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Oscar Hijuelos died in 2013, at age 62, his wife Lori Carlson-Hijuelos has been on a quest to make sure he wasn't forgotten.
Bechdel, Hough, Peters among nominees for Triangle Awards
March 21, 2022 GMTNEW YORK (AP) — Alison Bechdel, Lauren Hough and Torrey Peters are among the finalists for the 34th annual Triangle Awards for outstanding LGBTQ fiction and nonfiction books.
Two authors honored last week by the National Book Critics Circle, Jeremy Atheron Lin and the late Anthony Veasna So, also were among the nominees announced Monday by the Publishing Triangle, an association of LGBTQ people in publishing.
Groff, Delany, Arnett among ‘Lammy’ nominees for LGBTQ books
March 15, 2022 GMTNEW YORK (AP) — Fiction by Lauren Groff and Kristen Arnett, erotica by Samuel R. Delany and nonfiction by Daisy Hernández are among this year's nominees for Lambda awards, given for the year's best LGBTQ books.
Polish Nobel winner vying for International Booker Prize
March 10, 2022 GMTLONDON (AP) — Polish Nobel literature laureate Olga Tokarczuk and Israeli novelist David Grossman are both in the running, for a second time, for the International Booker Prize for fiction in English translation.
Cormac McCarthy has 2 novels coming out in the fall
March 9, 2022 GMTNEW YORK (AP) — Cormac McCarthy has two novels coming out this fall, his first fiction releases since the Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Road” in 2006.
Publisher Alfred A. Knopf announced Tuesday that “The Passenger,” a long-rumored novel about “morality and science” and “the legacy of sin” that McCarthy reportedly began decades ago, would come out Oct.
Well-Read Black Girl to help launch new literary series
February 10, 2022 GMTNEW YORK (AP) — The world of Well-Read Black Girl, and founder Glory Edim, keeps growing.
What began in 2015 as an Instagram book club and a phrase on a T-shirt given to Edim by her boyfriend is now a newsletter, literary festival, podcast and the basis for two published anthologies.
3 authors named winners of Science + Literature awards
February 9, 2022 GMTNEW YORK (AP) — The National Book Foundation has teamed with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to honor books that wed two categories not always in harmony: technology and the arts.
On Wednesday, the two organizations announced the inaugural winners of the Science + Literature awards, $10,000 honors for books, fiction or nonfiction, "that deepen readers’ understanding of science and technology.”
Review: ‘Black Cake’ a delicious novel in bite-sized chunks
January 31, 2022 GMT“Black Cake” by Charmaine Wilkerson (Ballantine Books)
The debut novel of former journalist and short fiction writer Charmaine Wilkerson opens with a one-paragraph prologue called “Then/1965.” A man stands at the water’s edge, “waiting for his daughter’s body to wash ashore.” The next page is titled “Now/2018″ and we meet Byron and Benny, estranged siblings seeing each other for the first time in eight years at their mother’s funeral.
Ugandan officials rearrest writer after court gives him bail
January 25, 2022 GMTKAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — A prominent Ugandan author jailed for nearly a month was freed on bail Tuesday but then was quickly rearrested by authorities, according to his attorney.
It is not known where Kakwenza Rukirabashaija is being held, said defense lawyer Eron Kiiza.
Author Nathan Harris earns Gaines Award for debut novel
January 25, 2022 GMTNEW ORLEANS (AP) — The debut work of Seattle author Nathan Harris has earned him the 2021 Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence.
Harris' “The Sweetness of Water” chronicles the unlikely bond forged between two freed men and a Georgia farmer set as the Civil War nears its end.
Free e-book previews new Bissinger, Hamid and other works
January 18, 2022 GMTNEW YORK (AP) — A free e-book compilation includes excerpts from upcoming novels by Geraldine Brooks, Karen Jay Fowler and Mohsin Hamid among others.
Buzz Books 2022: Spring/Summer was released Tuesday by the industry newsletter Publishers Marketplace and includes dozens of previews for fiction and nonfiction.