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Thursday, October 16, 2003 - Web posted at 7:25:34 GMT Pierre wins Booker Prize AUDREY WOODSLONDON - Australian writer DBC Pierre won the Booker Prize on Tuesday for his first novel, the darkly comic 'Vernon God Little', about a high school massacre in Texas. |
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Pierre - the pen name of Peter Warren Finlay - was one of six nominees for the prize, Britain's most prestigious literary award. When his nomination was announced a month ago, the judges called his book "an exhilarating, astounding book. You can't wait to turn the page. Highly poetic - a feast of language". The chairman of the judges, literary critic Professor John Carey, has praised Pierre's novel as "a coruscating black comedy reflecting our alarm but also our fascination with modern America". The book is the tale of a Texas teenager who lies his way into trouble and is put on trial for a mass killing at his school in the town of Martirio, described as "the barbecue sauce capital of Texas". In its review of the novel, The Guardian newspaper called 'Vernon God Little' "a startling and excellent debut, billed as a comedy: 'A 21st century comedy in the presence of death.'" "This is not the sort of black comedy that flips into light relief every six pages. Death is present in every scene," the reviewer wrote. "Like the best satires, it makes you feel faintly guilty for laughing, which intensifies the pleasure of reading. It also keeps you hooked: You can never quite be sure whether Vernon is lying to his readers as well as to the police, his mother and nearly everyone else he meets". In an interview last weekend with The Guardian, Pierre - whose pen name initials stand for Dirty But Clean - was quoted as saying that on one occasion he sold a friend's house and pocketed the money. "I let some very fine people, who believed in me, down. I thought that if the book worked I could start to quietly pay some of them back," he said. The award, announced at a formal gathering at the British Museum, comes with a check for 50 000 pounds (US$80 000). The author was born in 1961 in Australia and brought up in Mexico in a wealthy family. Currently living in Ireland, he has worked in the past as a designer and a cartoonist. His was one of three first novels nominated. The others were 'Brick Lane' by Monica Ali and 'Astonishing Splashes of Colour' by Clare Morrall. The three other contenders were 'Oryx and Crake' by Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood, 'Notes on a Scandal' by Zoe Heller, and 'The Good Doctor' by South African writer Damon Galgut. The Booker Prize is open to writers from Britain, Ireland and the Commonwealth of former British colonies. - Nampa-AP |
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