CWP Discussion Forum
Welcome to the Commonwealth Writers' Prize Discussion Forum
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The overall winners of the 21st Commonwealth Writers' Prize were announced at the Calabash International Literary Festival in Jamaica on Sunday 27 May 2007.
? Lloyd Jones of New Zealand wins Overall Best Book for Mister Pip
? D Y Béchard of Canada wins Overall Best First Book for Vandal Love
- 2007 Best Book
This forum is for readers to discuss Lloyd Jones' latest novel and winner of the 2007 Overall Best Book award, Mister Pip
Synopsis
Matilda is a 13 year old girl living in a remote village surrounded by civil unrest in the Pacific. With services shutting down, the only remaining white man, Mr Watts, takes over classes in the schoolroom, reading aloud to his class from Great Expectations, a book by his friend Mr Dickens.
Soon Dickens' hero Pip starts to come alive for Matilda, becoming as real to her as her god fearing mother, and the greatest friendship of her life begins.
But on an island at war, the power of the imagination can be a dangerously provocative thing?
- 2007 Best First Book
- Discussion Forum Topics
This forum is for readers to discuss DY Bechard's debut novel and winner of the 2007 Overall Best First Book award, Vandal Love
Synopsis
A family curse' a genetic trick resulting from centuries of hardship' causes the Hervé children to be born either giants or runts. Book I of Vandal Love follows the giants' line, exploring Jude Hervé's career as a boxer in Georgia and Louisiana in the 1960s, his escape from that brutal life alone with his baby daughter Isa, and her eventual decision to enter into a strange, chaste marriage with a much older man.
Book II traces a different kind of life entirely, as the runts of the family discover that their power lies in a kind of unifying love. François searches for years for his missing father; his own son, Harvey, flees from modern society into spiritual quests. But none of the Hervés can abandon their longing for a place where they might find others like themselves.
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