Australians are guaranteed at least two regional awards at this year's Commonwealth Writers' Prize (CWP). Local novelists occupy all 11 spots on the shortlists for Best Book and Best First Book for the Southeast Asia and South Pacific region..

Alex Miller's Landscape Of Farewell (A&U) heads the Best Book shortlist, along with The Crimes Of Billy Fish (Sarah Hopkins, ABC Books), The Time We Have Taken (Steven Carroll, Fourth Estate), The Ghost's Child (Sonya Hartnett, Viking), Burning In (Mireille Juchau, Giramondo) and The Lost Dog (Michelle de Kretser, A&U).

The Best First Book award will be decided between The Zookeeper's War (Steven Conte, Fourth Estate), The Anatomy Of Wings (Karen Foxlee UQP), Nights In The Asylum (Carol Lefevre, Vintage), The Edge Of The World (Marcella Polain, Fremantle Press), Other Country (Steven Scourfield, A&U) and The Orphan Gunner (Sara Knox, Giramondo).

The regional winners will be announced on 13 March, and they will then go to South Africa in May to compete with winners from Africa, the Caribbean, Canada, Europe and South Asia for the overall CWPs. Last year's Overall Best Book winner was Lloyd Jones's Mister Pip (Peng NZ/Text).
For the full shortlists, go to the Commonwealth Foundation website

This article from Australian Bookseller & Publisher magazine is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2008, Thorpe-Bowker

Tags: commonwealth writers prize