Who will win this year’s Pulitzer Prize for Fiction? One website has created an algorithm designed to predict who will win and successfully predicted Jennifer Egan’s win in 2011 for her book, A Visit From the Goon Squad. In the weeks leading up to the award’s announcement (April 15), Toonari Post will be reviewing several of the more discussed books from last year and try to see which book, above all others, deserves the award.

Two of the most discussed books this year were The Round House by Louise Erdrich and The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson, and it is not hard to see why. Both are phenomenal novels, and very likely one of these authors will come away with the award.

The Round House is the story of a rape and the subsequent trial of a Native American woman living on a reservation. Narrated through the eyes of her adolescent son, the novel deals primarily with racial injustice. It is comparable to Harper Lee’s masterpiece, To Kill a Mockingbird, and has become a favorite with the general public.

Ironically, the book’s big success could spell its doom for the Pulitzer: late last year it won the National Book Award, and although it is not unprecedented, books rarely win both awards. The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx, published in 1993, was the last book to accomplish this feat. Could the literary strength of The Round House help it break a 20-year curse? It is more than possible.

The Orphan Master’s Son is the about the life of the fictional Jun Do, an orphan in North Korea who slowly rises through the ranks to become one of the most powerful men in the country. It is a brilliant achievement and a break out book for author Adam Johnson, who has previously published a collection of short stories entitled Emporium and the novel Parasites Like Us. Through the horror of the North Korean regime, Johnson is able in his latest book to create a book that is part thriller, part love story, part internal crisis and much more. There is something here for everyone to enjoy.

However, the Pulitzer Prize primarily deals with books that deal with American ideals and citizens. Although part of the book is set in Texas and North Korea is constantly compared and contrasted with the US in the book, it could be simply not American enough to win. There have been exceptions before, though, and the massive scope of the book is comparable to the sprawling plot lines of previous Pulitzer winners, so only time will tell if the judges decide the book features enough American “values” to merit the award.

Stay tuned at Toonari Post for more Pulitzer news and the reveal of the winners on April 15.

Image credit: jenniferegan.com

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He is one of the most polarizing figures in world literature. No photographs of him have been published since the fifties. He is the textbook example of postmodernism, famous for his large, dense, and (according to some people) unapproachable tomes. He is Thomas Pynchon: one of America’s leading men of letters, one of the most secretive novelists the world over, a perennial Nobel Prize in Literature candidate, and according to leading book critic and editor Ron Charles, his next book will apparently soon be arriving at bookstores. Charles tweeted that two sources at Penguin Press, Pynchon’s publishing house, had confirmed the news. If it is true, no release date has been set yet.

Entitled The Bleeding Edge, details are scarce, which is not too surprising considering Pynchon’s reclusive nature. It could be another labyrinthine, doorstop-sized novel like two of Pynchon’s most acclaimed books, Gravity’s Rainbow (winner of the 1974 National Book Award) and Mason and Dixon or it could be a beach read, like his latest book, Inherent Vice.

The term ‘bleeding edge’ is usually used when talking about new technology whose use could be risky or unreliable and cause companies great expenses. It is unclear if this is what Pynchon means with the title, but his books have a history of being concerned with mathematics and technology, so it is not too unlikely a guess.

Pynchon, following the tradition of J.D. Salinger, is a notoriously reclusive novelist. Details about his life are scarce. He was raised on Long Island, where he attended Oyster Bay High School, graduating at age 16. He attended Cornell University, where he studied Electrical Engineering before taking a few years off to join the navy. Upon his reentry into the school, he switched to English and enrolled in a class taught by Vladimir Nabokov of Lolita fame. After graduation, he took a job as a technical writer at Boeing while writing his first novel, V. He soon quit his job in the early 60’s and immersed himself in the hippie culture of California, whereupon the public’s knowledge of Pynchon ends.

Inherent Vice is also due for a movie adaption, sources say. Director Paul Thomas Anderson, famous for directing movies such as ‘There Will Be Blood’ and most recently ‘The Master’, has expressed interest in directing a film adaption of the novel. Principal shooting will take place this year, and IMDB gives the movie a tentative 2014 release date. The book was met with mixed reviews, but given Anderson’s past experiences with filmmaking, it could become one of the greatest movies of the decade.

Image Courtesy : Intrepidteacher

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Louise Erdrich joined the ranks of authors such as William Faulkner, Saul Bellow, and John Updike late November 14, when it was announced that her book, “The Roundhouse,” had won the National Book Award for Fiction. The novel is about a young teenage boy on a Native American reservation struggling to come to terms with racial injustice. Erdrich, herself part Native American, started off her acceptance speech in her Native American language before continuing in English.

Said Erdrich: “This is a book about a huge case of injustice ongoing on reservations. Thank you for giving it a wider audience.”

The other fiction nominees this year were “This is How You Lose Her,” by Junot Diaz, “A Hologram for the King,” by Dave Eggers, “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk,” by Ben Fountain, and “The Yellow Birds,” the debut work of Kevin Powers. Although the National Book Award usually favors obscure writers, this year showed a remarkable number of heavyweights among the finalists. Diaz received a MacArthur Genius Grant this past year for his work, while both Eggers and Erdrich have received Pulitzer prize nominations before.

The non-fiction category was no less competitive, with Pulitzer prize winning journalists included in the pack. Ultimately Katherine Boo won the award with her searing examination of life in the slums of Mumbai, “Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity.”

William Alexander won in the Young People’s Literature category for “Goblin Secrets” and David Ferry was awarded the poetry prize for his “Bewilderment: New Poems and Translations.” Ferry, 88, thought he had a decent chance at winning, if for no other reason than he was so much older than the other nominees, meaning this might be his last chance to win. “My only hope was a preposterous pre-posthumous award,” he said, “and I guess that is what I have won here.”

Winners receive $10,000 and a bronze statuette for the prize. Judges this year read over 1,300 books prior to deciding on finalists.

Elmore Leonard won the award for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, an award honoring lifetime achievement that has previously gone to writers as diverse as Toni Morrison and Stephen King. Summing up, he said, “I am energized by this honor. The only thing I’ve ever wanted to do in my life is tell stories, and this award tells me I am still good at it.”

The National Book Award has catapulted writers such as Don DeLillo and Cormac McCarthy out of obscurity and into popular authors. It is not uncommon to see finalists for the National Book Award go on to win other prizes. Could this be just the beginning for Erdrich?

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Independently published historical fiction author Jessica James is preparing for a busy Christmas season after receiving the coveted John Esten Cooke Award for Southern Fiction for her Civil War novel Noble Cause. This award is presented annually to encourage writers of fiction to portray characters and events dealing with Southern history and the war between the States in a historically accurate fashion.

Other John Esten Cooke Award winners include New York Times bestselling authors Donald McCaig for Jacob’s Ladder, Robert Macomber for Point of Honor, and Harry Turtledove for The Guns of the South.

John Esten Cooke, for whom the award is named, was one of the most important literary figures of nineteenth-century Virginia. A prolific author of historical adventures and romances in the tradition of SirWalter Scott and James Fenimore Cooper, Cooke’s work holds a significant place in Virginia’s literary history and in nineteenth-century American literary culture.

Released in Charleston, S.C., on the 150th anniversary of the firing on Fort Sumter, Noble Cause has garnered a number of other prestigious national awards, capturing the attention of Civil War authors and historians, as well as avid romance readers. It won the Next Generation Indie Award for Regional Fiction, and was named a Finalist in the Historical Fiction category in the USA ”Best Books of 2011″ Awards.

The Midwest Book Review calls Noble Cause, “riveting historical fiction,” while other reviewers have compared it to Gone with the Wind in scope, grandeur and quality. The fine line between friends and enemies is revealed in this epic love story that captures the emotions and fears of the country as war sweeps the land. Though laced with historical detail, it is less about the clash of armies on the battlefield, as it is about the clash of loyalty and love with honor and conviction.

A Yankee by birth, the author takes readers on a journey south of the Mason-Dixon Line to the rolling hills of Virginia in this historically accurate love story that is capturing national attention for its attention to detail and unique blending of romance with historical fiction. ”It’s very fulfilling to know that even those who are not interested in the Civil War are enjoying the book,” the Gettysburg author said.

James’ first novel, Shades of Gray, also won numerous national awards and temporarily moved ahead of Gone with the Wind on Amazon’s bestseller list in its category. The author was featured in the book 50 Great Writers You Should Be Reading, published in 2010, and has been invited as a featured author to the Amelia Island Book Festival in Florida in February.

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