This annual presentation to recognise excellence in fiction and biography are the oldest literary awards in the UK, founded in 1919 by Mrs Janet Coats in memory of her husband, James Tait Black, a publisher and book lover. The Judges are a team of academics and post graduate students of the School of Literature, Languages and Culture at the University of Edinburgh.
Sally Magnusson, TV broadcaster, author and Edinburgh alumna, presented the ceremony with a charming manner, humour and erudite conversation. The shortlist featured four novels and four biographies, selected from over 400 entries.
Biography Prize
Chair of the Biography panel, Dr. Jonathan Wild began with a discussion on “The Blue Touch Paper”, by David Hare, the renowned playwright. It’s a nostalgic, sharp and witty memoir of his 1950s childhood in Bexhill-on-Sea and his life and times up to 1979, an era which inspired his dramas.
The Bloomsbury Group - Virginia Woolf, Lytton Strachey and coterie of intellectual, bohemian writers and artists. Sarah Knights has investigated the life of David Garnett, “Bloomsbury’s Outsider”, a novelist, notably “Lady Into Fox” and “ Aspects of Love”, adapted by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Garnett was a libertine with a zest for love affairs irrespective of gender. On the birth of Duncan and Vanessa’s daughter Angelica, he said he would marry her. And he did.
“I was born about sun rising in my maternal grandfather’s bedchamber on 12th March 1626. St. Gregory’s Day, very sickly, likely to die.” “John Aubrey – my own life” by Ruth Scurr is a fake autobiography, a work of scholarly imagination to invent his diary reflecting Aubrey’s unique voice as a pioneering journalist who witnessed the Civil War and the Great Fire of London.
James Shapiro is also fascinated by 17th century England, delving into the life of “1606: William Shakespeare and the Year of Lear”. A significant year indeed – the new United Kingdom under James V1 /James 1 and the terrorist attempt in the Gunpowder Plot, a turbulent time during which Shakespeare wrote Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, and Macbeth.
James Shapiro was presented with the James Tait Black Prize for Biography: “As a kid from Brooklyn, this is a dream.” he commented, “I am honoured to be on the list of previous winning authors”.
Fiction Prize
Dr Alex Laurie, Chair of the Fiction panel, then joined Sally for a discussion on the shortlist. First was “Beatlebone” by Kevin Barry, a surreal blend of fact and fantasy about John Lennon’s pilgrimage in 1978 from New York to Ireland, to find the West Coast island he had purchased 11 years previously. In “The Wolf Border” by Sarah Hall interlinks the themes of motherhood and the conservation of wolves in the wild landscapes of Idaho and Cumbria, reflecting on personal, political and physical boundaries.
Quirky and cookie are the words to describe “The First Bad Man” the first novel by film maker and artist, Miranda July. It’s an off beat tragi-comedy about womanhood, aging and loneliness all wrapped up in an American love story. And finally, “You Don’t Have to Live Like This” by Benjamin Markovits is set in Detroit, 2008 in the wake of the global financial crisis, a social realism story of unemployment, class war, racism and city regeneration.
Benjamin Markovits was then announced the recipient of the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction. In his acceptance speech he said writing was a lonely business and, as a half German, half Jewish American, this was a prestigious accolade by the University of Edinburgh.
Next year, in order to include the literary opinion of the general public, there will be an opportunity for readers to take part in a MOOC survey – a Massive Open On Line Course. Details announced April 2017.
Event details: The James Tait Black Prizes event at the Edinburgh International Book Festival took place on Monday 15th August, 2016.
