Novel Makes German Awards Shortlist

New Zealand author Lloyd Jones’ novel Hand Me Down World is one of six books to make the shortlist for Germany’s International Literature Award 2013. For the awards, 136 titles were submitted translated from 27 languages. Jury member Claudia Kramatschek said Jones’ novel deals with a very current theme: “namely the story of a black woman who comes to Berlin … searching for her child who was stolen from her. The fate of this woman – and this is formally something very interesting – is narrated from different perspectives and at differing intervals by those who accompany this woman on her journey from Africa.” The winner of the International Literature Award will be announced on 30 May. In 2007, Jones’ Mister Pip won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for best book in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific.