Marlon James won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize in the fiction category for his The Book of Night Women. Inspired by the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords that ended the war in Bosnia, The Dayton Literary Peace Prize is the only international literary peace prize awarded in the United States. The Prize celebrates the power of literature to promote peace and global understanding. More...
New York Magazine names Marlon James' The Book of Night Women the #3 Best Book of 2009. It also landed on Time Out New York's Best of 2009 list, calling it a work of "stunning gravitas and beauty."
Riverhead has made an appearance on many of the Best Books of 2009 lists, from The New York Times to The New Yorker, and the accolades keep rolling in. The Cleveland Plain Dealer picked The Book of Night Women as one of the 20 Best Books of 2009. Largehearted Boy named Cristina Henríquez’s The World in Half a Favorite Novel of 2009. Salon picked Sarah Waters’ The Little Stranger. Love and Obstacles was chosed by the Kansas City Star. The Boston Globe selected Walter Mosley’s The Long Fall. The Christian Science Monitor picked Barbara Bradley Hagerty's Fingerprints of God and David Owen's Green Metropolis. Alan Beattie's False Economy is an 800 CEO Read Best Business Book of 2009.Plus, the San Francisco Chronicle names Bernardine Evaristo’s Blonde Roots and Aleksandar Hemon’s Love and Obstacles as two of the Best Books of 2009.
For the first time in six years the Morning News has released their long list for the 2010 Tournament of Books, and Riverhead is well represented with Marlon James’ The Book of Night Women, Nami Mun’s Miles from Nowhere, Sarah Waters’ The Little Stranger, and Juan Gabriel Vásquez’s The Informers. The short list as well as the judges will be announced in January.
Library Journal announced their picks for the Best Books of 2009 and two Riverhead titles made the cut. Allison Hoover Bartlett’s The Man Who Loved Books Too Much—“A compulsively readable tale”—and Marlon James’ The Book Of Night Women—“Fearlessly written and gaspingly wrenching to read.”
2:00 p.m. Satire and Comic Relief in 2009. Whatever else is down (the economy, the Republicans)—satire is up. A conversation with authors Jeffery Rotter (The Unknown Knowns), Gary Shteyngart (Absurdistan) and SLOANE CROSLEY (I Was Told There’d Be Cake). Moderated by New Yorker editor Ben Greenman (Superworse).
2:00 p.m. The Naked City: Urban Realism and the Global City in Fiction & Non-Fiction. A discussion exploring the gritty urban realism of the contemporary global city as seen through recent works of fiction and non-fiction about Delhi, New York and Mexico City. Featuring DAVID LIDA (First Stop in the New World), Meera Nair (Video) and Hirsh Sawhney (editor, Delhi Noir). Moderated by Cheryl Harris Sharman (Nightshift NYC).
3:00 p.m. American Food. Three writers discuss the past, present and future of what we eat. Featuring MARK KURLANSKY (The Food of a Younger Land), Jennifer 8. Lee (The Fortune Cookie Chronicles) and Liz Thorpe (The Cheese Chronicles). Moderated by “Serious Eats” blogger Ed Levine.
4:00 p.m. Crime and Punishment. Readings from three of the most dangerous and compelling novels of 2009. Featuring Lou Manfredo (Rizzo’s War), Liz Balmaseda (Sweet Mary) and MARLON JAMES (The Book of Night Women). Introduced by Tim McLoughlin.
See the Brooklyn Book Festival website for more information and the full schedule.
Marlon James, author of The Book of Night Women, writes for Granta about growing up with the King of Pop: "Michael Jackson lost his childhood but he extended mine. He could moonwalk as if gravity was just a theory and Peter Pan fact. He could claim to be a virgin and make every nerd instantly cooler. By imitating Jackson I found a way to be me without being made fun of."
In this story of slavery, souls refuse to be shackled
"Marlon James's The Book of Night Women is a devastating epic of savage history, relentless oppression, and souls that refuse to be shackled … a searing read, full of blood, tears, and the stench of misery. It's barbaric and ancient, but also familiar in the ways that people, consumed by their differences and divisions, easily overlook all that binds them -- the desire for independence, the right to a civilized life, and the need to give and receive love." More...
"The narrative voice, with its idiosyncratic inflections and storytelling warmth, will pull you into this outsized, marvelous account ... James recreates a world and brushes it with an element of the fantastic, but the emotions he conveys are all too real and heartbreaking." More...
