Teju Cole, writer in residence at Bard College, has won the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award, which honors outstanding first works of fiction, for his novel “Open City.” Previous winners of the prize include Bobbie Mason, Renata Adler, Ha Jin, Jhumpa Lahiri and Dagoberto Gilb.
Mr. Cole, 36, was born in the United States and raised in Nigeria. His novel, about a Nigerian studying psychiatry in New York who takes to wandering Manhattan and then the world after he breaks up with his girlfriend, was nominated by the National Book Critics Circle in January as one of five finalists for best novel of 2011; the winner of that competition will be announced Thursday evening.
“Open City” is actually Mr. Cole’s second work of fiction; he is also the author of a 128-page novella, “Every Day Is for the Thief.” That book, about a young Nigerian returning home to Lagos after a long absence abroad, was published in 2007 by Cassava Republic Press, a small publishing house based in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria.
“This is an exceptional case,” Karen Wulf, executive director of PEN New England, the co-sponsor of the award, said when asked about the apparent violation of the award rules. “That first book was never published or even carried here in the U.S., and even in Nigeria it had a limited publication run, so our judges decided to make an exception.”
via NYTimes
