1997 Winner
Margaret Jull Costa
SHORTLIST
LONGLIST
Judges
Jane Urquhart
Jane Urquhart
Jane Urquhart is a Canadian novelist and poet. She is the internationally acclaimed author of seven award-winning novels, three books of poetry and numerous short stories. As a novelist, Urquhart is well known for her evocative style which blends history with the present day. Her first novel, The Whirlpool (published 1986), gained her international recognition when she became the first Canadian to win France’s prestigious Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger (Best Foreign Book Award). Her subsequent novels were even more successful. Away, published in 1993, won the Trillium Award and was a national bestseller. In 1997, her fourth novel, The Underpainter, won the Governor General’s Literary Award.
Josef Škvorecký
Josef Škvorecký
Josef Škvorecký CM was a Czech-Canadian writer and publisher. He spent half of his life in Canada, publishing and supporting banned Czech literature during the communist era. Škvorecký was awarded the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 1980.
Margaret Drabble
Margaret Drabble
Dame Margaret Drabble, Lady Holroyd, DBE, FRSL is an English biographer, novelist and short story writer. Drabble’s books include The Millstone, which won the following year’s John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize, and Jerusalem the Golden, which won the 1967 James Tait Black Memorial Prize.
Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill
Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill
uala Ni Dhomhnaill is one of the most prominent poets writing in the Irish language today. Her poetry has been translated into English by a number of well-known Irish poets, including Seamus Heaney, Medbh McGuckian, and Paul Muldoon. Irish themes, including language, are central to her poetry and range from ancient myths to small details of contemporary life. Her first collection was published in 1981, and the translation Selected Poems: Rogha Danta appeared in 1986. Her works have since been translated into Italian, Japanese, and Turkish.
Shawn Wong
Shawn Wong
Shawn K. Wong is a Chinese American author and scholar. He has served as the Professor of English, Director of the University Honors Program (2003–06), Chair of the Department of English (1997–2002), and Director of the Creative Writing Program (1995–97) at the University of Washington, where he has been on the faculty since 1984 and teaches courses covering critical theory, Asian American studies, which he is considered a pioneer in, and fiction writing.