Three upcoming major book awards will be announced within a week of each other.

First, the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature will be announced this Thursday, Oct. 9. The current favorites are Haruki Murakami, whose books are owned widely by U.S. libraries, and Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, whose works are available in the U.S., but are less widely owned.

Don’t take the wagering too seriously, however, as the Christian Science Monitor outlines, this award is notoriously difficult to predict.

A week from tomorrow, on Tuesday, October 14, the Man Booker Prize will be presented by the Duchess of Cornwall  at a ceremony at London’s Guildhall. This is the first time that Americans have been allowed in to the competition. Two made itto the shortlist of six titles; To Rise Again at a Decent Hour by Joshua Ferris and We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler. Currently, both are trailing in the odds. Neel Mukherjee is in the lead for The Lives Of Others, followed closely by Richard Flanagan, The Narrow Road To The Deep North.

The next day, Wednesday, Oct. 15, sees the release of the shortlist of finalists for the National Book Awards (winners to be announced on Nov. 19). Now that Americans are included in the Booker Awards, it would have been interesting if there were overlaps.  However, just one title was on both longlists, Richard Powers’ Orfeo, and it did not make it to the Booker shortlist.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 6th, 2014 at 12:24 pm and is filed under Awards. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.