Novel with mixed protagonist up for prestigious literary award
CVK
BBC News reports that The Ballad of Lee Cotton by Christopher Wilson has been shortlisted for the best novel category of the Whitbread awards:
The awards recognise the most enjoyable books of last year by writers based in the UK and Ireland and were established by Whitbread in 1971…
In The Ballad of Lee Cotton, Christopher Wilson tells the story of the son of a mixed-race mother and Icelandic father, whose background - which makes him white - sets him apart from his friends in Eureka, Mississippi.
A story of what it is to be human, the book is described by the judges as “wholly original, utterly riveting and full of surprises”…
The Whitbread Book of the Year award was established in 1985 and has been won seven times by a novel, three times by a first novel, four times by a biography, five times by a collection of poetry and once by a children’s book.
Rachel S wrote:
Okay, just a little humor here, but the award looks dangerous close to “White bread.” I got a little chuckle out of that.
Posted 16 Nov 2005 at 8:00 pm ¶
Guilt Tripper wrote:
Hmm, heroic “Black” boy battles Deep Southern racists (predictably over a trophy prize White girl) with a Creole Voodoo mammy thrown in for good measure? The passage of time sure has a way of reducing complex history down to a few polarized stereotypes. Does this write-by-the-numbers romanticized Americana ever get old?
“I got to backtrack about growing up as an Iceland colored, with double-recessive white genes, because my mambo grandmother was only part black, while my daddy was pure Scandinavian blond.”
LMAO - this poor attempt to combine patois with more worldly terms like “double-recessive” and “Scandinavian” is like mixing oil with water. This author must be very, very White…
But aren’t writers supposed to write what they know?
Posted 17 Nov 2005 at 5:49 pm ¶
Tana Pearl wrote:
Hey, isn’t this a novel - fiction? The writer can make up anything he wants. Did you like the book?
Posted 04 Feb 2006 at 10:49 am ¶