{"id":5779,"date":"2015-08-20T10:55:31","date_gmt":"2015-08-20T09:55:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/?p=5779"},"modified":"2015-08-20T10:55:31","modified_gmt":"2015-08-20T09:55:31","slug":"zia-haiders-novel-wins-britains-oldest-literary-prize","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/english.thesunrisetoday.com\/index.php\/zia-haiders-novel-wins-britains-oldest-literary-prize\/","title":{"rendered":"Zia Haider\u2019s novel wins Britain’s oldest literary prize"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Zia\"<\/a>Zia Haider Rahman has won Britain\u2019s oldest literary prize, the James Tait Black award, for his first novel, In the Light of What We Know.
\nHaider Rahman, who was born in Bangladesh and who has worked as an investment banker and a human rights lawyer, took this year\u2019s prize at the Edinburgh international book festival on Monday evening for his story of an investment banker who receives a visit from an old friend.
\nJames Wood in the New Yorker called In the Light of What We Know \u201castonishingly achieved for a first book\u201d, while the Observer found it to be \u201can extraordinary meditation on the limits and uses of human knowledge, a heartbreaking love story and a gripping account of one man\u2019s psychological disintegration\u201d.
\nThe University of Edinburgh\u2019s professor Randall Stevenson, chairman of the prize, said it \u201caddresses a whole range of issues \u2013 the war in Afghanistan, the rise of Muslim fundamentalism and the banking crisis\u201d, and that Rahman \u201calso explores problematic areas of politics and finance, which are often exiled from the pages of fiction, immersing his readers, dauntingly but comprehensibly\u201d.
\n\u201cThe novel\u2019s impressive scope is complemented by Rahman\u2019s ability to locate the personal in the political,\u201d added Stevenson. Rahman\u2019s debut beat three other novels \u2013 Dear Thief by Samantha Harvey, Fourth of July Creek by Smith Henderson and We Are Not Ourselves by Matthew Thomas \u2013 to win the award, which is given annually by the University of Edinburgh after its academics and postgraduate students read more than 400 novels to nominate a shortlist.
\nRunning since 1919 when it was established by Janet Coats, the widow of publisher James Tait Black, to \u201ccommemorate her husband\u2019s love of good books\u201d, the \u00a310,000 fiction award has gone in the past to DH Lawrence, Angela Carter and Graham Greene.
\nThe \u00a310,000 biography prize was also awarded on Monday evening, going to Richard Benson for his work The Valley, a biographical study of the author\u2019s own Yorkshire family over the last 100 years. Dan Davies\u2019 biography of Jimmy Savile had also been shortlisted for the prize, as had Rachel Holmes\u2019s biography of Eleanor Marx, and Patrick McGuinness\u2019s Other People\u2019s Countries.
\nBiography judge Dr Jonathan Wild from the University of Edinburgh called Benson\u2019s title \u201ca remarkable reclamation of a once prevalent social group now almost entirely gone\u201d, adding that it brings \u201cback to life the sort of mining community that once populated large swaths of the British landscape with an uncanny eye for details that allows his forebears to spring off the page and into life.\u201d -theguardian<\/em><\/p>\n

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