JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Tuesday, February 18, 2025

Chaguanas author longlisted for

Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction

by

Ira Mathur
359 days ago
20240223

Ch­agua­nas-born Trinida­di­an au­thor Kevin Jared Ho­sein’s nov­el Hun­gry Ghosts (Blooms­bury Pub­lish­ing Feb 2023) has been longlist­ed for one of the most pres­ti­gious lit­er­ary prizes in the world–the Wal­ter Scott Prize for His­tor­i­cal Fic­tion.

Ho­sein’s nov­el has been de­scribed by cel­e­brat­ed his­tor­i­cal writer, the late Hi­lary Man­tel, as “deeply im­pres­sive”, and Bernar­dine Evaris­to, pres­i­dent of the Roy­al So­ci­ety of Lit­er­a­ture, called his his­tor­i­cal nov­el “lin­guis­ti­cal­ly gor­geous”.

The prize was found­ed in 2009 and is tra­di­tion­al­ly award­ed at the Bor­ders Book Fes­ti­val in Mel­rose, Scot­land, in June every year. The win­ner re­ceives £25,000, and short­list­ed au­thors each re­ceive £1,500. The short­list for the prize will be an­nounced in May and the win­ner in June 2024.

Ho­sein shared the Wal­ter Scott longlist link on his Face­book page on Feb­ru­ary 22 by call­ing the news “in­cred­i­ble”, and adding his book was with “mas­sive com­pa­ny”.

The 2024 judg­ing pan­el in­cludes Katie Grant (chair), James Hol­loway, Eliz­a­beth Laird, James Naugh­tie, Kirsty Wark and Saira Shah.

In a press re­lease an­nounc­ing the longlist, the chair of Judges, Katie Grant, said:

“This year’s longlist sweeps us from one end of the world to the oth­er and from the Dark Ages to the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry–al­most a mil­len­ni­um-and-a-half. Along the way, we hear tales of fif­teenth-cen­tu­ry Nor­wich and of the High­land Clear­ances of the 1800s; of the se­cret rail­road through the Amer­i­c­as dur­ing the mid-nine­teenth cen­tu­ry and of for­bid­den love in Lon­don at the turn of the twen­ti­eth; from trop­i­cal Ja­maica to Japan and Ko­rea in the late 1800s, and to sul­try Penang as the twen­ti­eth-cen­tu­ry dawns; on­wards to Trinidad, to Rome, to Crete and to New Zealand dur­ing the Sec­ond World War years; and to Lon­don and Paris in the swing­ing 1960s when any­thing seems pos­si­ble.

“In each book, emo­tions run deep from the epic to the in­ti­mate, from the philo­soph­i­cal to the swash­buck­ling, and from the tra­di­tion­al to the ex­per­i­men­tal. If you read the whole list, just like the pan­el of judges, you’ll nev­er be short of con­ver­sa­tion. Longlist­ed au­thors this year en­com­pass a range of na­tion­al­i­ties, in­clud­ing Aus­tralian, British, Cana­di­an, Irish, Malaysian and Trinida­di­an.”

The Wal­ter Scott Prize is spon­sored by the Duke of Buc­cleuch, and “cel­e­brates qual­i­ty, in­no­va­tion and am­bi­tion of writ­ing.”

In 2022, Trinida­di­an/Irish writer Aman­da Smyth’s nov­el For­tune (Peepal Tree Press), based in Trinidad in the 1920s, was short­list­ed for the pres­ti­gious prize.

An ear­ly re­view of Hun­gry Ghosts by Tere­sa White in The Sun­day Guardian de­scribed Ho­sein’s nov­el set in bar­racks in 1940s Trinidad.

“If tra­di­tion­al Trinida­di­an work­ing-class nar­ra­tives take place in the East Dry Riv­er yard (The Drag­on Can’t Dance and Moon on a Rain­bow Shawl come im­me­di­ate­ly to mind), Hun­gry Ghosts takes place in the shared space of the Ca­roni Plain bar­rack room. The emerg­ing themes are sim­i­lar: hunger, de­sire, am­bi­tion and the com­plete ab­sence of pri­va­cy. But the ex­posed Cen­tral land­scape lays hu­man­i­ty poignant­ly bare:

“Here, the snakes’ calls blurred with the pri­mae­val hiss of wind through the plants. Pic­ture en plein air, all shades of green with ver­mil­lion soaked with red and pur­ple and ochre. Pic­ture what the good peo­ple call fever grass, wild caraille, shin­ing bush, timaries, teco­marias, bois gris, bois can­ot, christophene, ch­enette, moko, moringa, pom­mer­ac, pom­me­cythere, bar­ba­dine, barthar. Hu­man­i­ty as ants on the Sa­van­nah.”

Ho­sein’s pre­vi­ous books, The Re­pen­ters and The Beast of Kukuyo were longlist­ed by the In­ter­na­tion­al Dublin Lit­er­ary Award. The Beast of Kukuyo won a CODE Burt Award for Caribbean Young Adult Lit­er­a­ture. Ear­li­er this year Ho­sein was longlist­ed for the Swansea Uni­ver­si­ty Dy­lan Thomas Prize

In 2022, Trinida­di­an/Irish writer Aman­da Smyth’s nov­el For­tune (Peepal Tree Press), based in Trinidad in the 1920s, was short­list­ed for the pres­ti­gious prize.

The 12 nov­els in con­tention for the £25,000 prize are:

• THE NEW LIFE Tom Crewe (Chat­to & Win­dus)

• A BET­TER PLACE Stephen Dais­ley (Text Pub­lish­ing)

• HUN­GRY GHOSTS Kevin Jared Ho­sein (Blooms­bury)

• FOR THY GREAT PAIN, HAVE MER­CY ON MY LIT­TLE PAIN Vic­to­ria MacKen­zie (Blooms­bury)

• MU­SIC IN THE DARK Sal­ly Mag­nus­son (John Mur­ray)

• CUD­DY Ben­jamin My­ers (Blooms­bury)

• MY FA­THER’S HOUSE Joseph O’Con­nor (Harvill Seck­er)

• THE FRAUD Zadie Smith (Hamish Hamil­ton)

• MIS­TER TIME­LESS BLYTH Alan Spence (Tut­tle)

• THE HOUSE OF DOORS Tan Twan Eng (Canon­gate)

• IN THE UP­PER COUN­TRY Kai Thomas (Pen­guin Cana­da)

• AB­SOLUTE­LY AND FOR­EV­ER Rose Tremain (Chat­to & Win­dus)

Ira Math­ur is a Guardian Me­dia writer and the 2023 Non-Fic­tion Bo­cas Prize for Lit­er­a­ture win­ner. www.iras­room.org


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored