 May 18 (Bloomberg) -- Lawrence Hill
won the top Commonwealth Writers' Prize for ``The Book of Negroes,'' a novel
about a West African girl sold into slavery in 18th-century South Carolina who
eventually returns home.
The Canadian author received a 10,000-pound ($19,600) check for the Overall
Best Book Award from South African Minister of Arts and Culture Z. Pallo
Jordan in a ceremony today at the Franschhoek Literary Festival in South Africa,
the contest organizers said in an e-mailed press release.
Tahmima Anam of Bangladesh won the
5,000-pound Overall Best First Book prize for ``A Golden Age,'' a fictionalized
account of her country's war for independence in 1971.
Hill's ``The Book of Negroes'' is written in the voice of an 18th-century
West African named Aminata Diallo who is abducted from her village as an
11-year-old girl, becomes a slave in South Carolina, wins her freedom during the
American Revolutionary War and finds her way back to Sierra Leone. The book has
been published in the U.S. under the title ``Someone Knows My Name.''
Held each year by the intergovernmental Commonwealth Foundation, the
contest aims to reward the best fiction written in English in the 53-member
Commonwealth. The prize is meant to give the winners a global audience and to
build understanding between cultures.
The contest is supported by the Macquarie Group Foundation, the philanthropic
arm of Macquarie
Group Ltd., Australia's largest investment bank.
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