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The Folio Prize - to rival Booker,will include genre books & English-language fiction from around the world


AncalagonTheBlack

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The Folio Society has been named the official sponsor of an unprecedented new award in fiction – The Folio Prize

Worth £40,000, The Folio Prize will recognise and celebrate the best English-language fiction from around the world, published in the United Kingdom in any given year regardless of form, genre or the author’s country of origin. It is the first such book prize and the inaugural award will take place in March 2014.

A unique aspect of The Folio Prize is the Academy. A body of over 100 highly respected writers and critics from around the world, The Folio Prize Academy will play a key role in the process by which books are selected and considered each year. Every year, the five judges who will decide on the winning book will be drawn from the Folio Prize Academy.

Shortlists will be selected by a “group of more than 100 distinguished authors and critics,” including China Mieville,Helen Oyeyemi,Michael Chabon, David Mitchell, Hari Kunzru, Philip Pullman, and Margaret Atwood. Five judges will then be drawn from that lot to pick a single winner each year.

The Folio Prize is open to all works of fiction written in English and published in the UK. All genres and all forms of fiction are eligible. The format of first publication may be print or digital.

The Prize will be awarded in March for books published in the previous calendar year.

http://www.thefolioprize.com/the-prize/

ACADEMY MEMBERS -

http://www.thefolioprize.com/the-academy/#wdg-members

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The Folio Prize will recognise and celebrate the best English-language fiction from around the world, published in the United Kingdom in any given year regardless of form, genre or the author’s country of origin. It is the first such book prize

Is that strictly true? I suppose it might be the first such prize in the UK, but the National Book Critics Circle Award is given to the best novel published in the US for the first time in English (including translations), regardless of the author's country of origin. The NBCCA also does not exclude fiction based on genre. In fact I do not believe that the Booker Prize, Pulitzer Prize, Whitbread/Costa Book Award, National Book Award, or PEN/Faulkner Award exclude fiction based on genre either. Most of those awards don't often go to genre novels, but that seems more to do with the judges, rather than any official rule. It does seem though, based on the judges pool, that the Folio Prize is more likely to be awarded to a genre novel than any of the above mentioned awards.

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