Eight authors feature on the 2015 Folio prize shortlist, with £40,000 (€54,000 Euros) for the winner, to be announced at a ceremony in London on Monday, March 23. Colm Tóibín numbers among the eight contenders, narrowed down from the 80-strong longlist.
Five women and three men from the UK, Ireland, US, Canada, Kenya and India were named on the shortlist of this literary prize which is now in its second year.
Ali Smith’s How to Be Both won the Costa novel award and the Goldsmiths prize and has already been runner-up in the Booker prize.
As mentioned, Colm Tóibín’s Nora Webster is also in the running, as is Ben Lerner’s 10:04, Miriam Toews’ All My Puny Sorrows, Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor’s debut novel Dust, Akhil Sharma’s Family Life, Rachel Cusk’s Outline, and Jenny Offill’s Dept. of Speculation.
The Folio prize is designed to highlight the best in English-language fiction, regardless of form, genre and geography. The 2014 award went to the American short-story writer George Saunders for his collection of short stories, Tenth of December.
