The Prestigious Neustadt Prize For Literature Goes To Patricia Grace
New Zealand author Patricia Grace has been named as the 2008 laureate of the US$50,000 Neustadt International Prize for Literature. The honour, administered by the University of Oklahoma and its international magazine World Literature Today, is judged by an international jury and widely considered to be the most prestigious international literary prize after the Nobel. In announcing the 2008 Neustadt laureate, Robert Con Davis-Undiano, Neustadt professor and executive director of World Literature Today said: "This award is a landmark recognition of an indigenous writer and gives a strong sense of the direction of important literature in the 21st century." Grace, whose work is heavily influenced by Maori traditions and history, is the author of six novels and many short stories and children's books. She won the New Zealand Book Award for fiction for her novel Potiki in 1986 and was awarded the Neustadt Prize on the strength of her 1998 novel Baby No-Eyes, which was the rep...