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Giggs shortlisted for ALA Andrew Carnegie Medal

Australian writer Rebecca Giggs has been shortlisted for the American Library Association’s (ALA) 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medal for nonfiction for Fathoms: The world in the whale (Scribe).

Giggs’s consideration of whales and the environment is shortlisted alongside books by Claudia Rankine (Just Us: An American conversation, Allen Lane) and Natasha Trethewey (Memorial Drive: A daughter’s memoir, Bloomsbury Circus).

In 2018 Scribe sold North American rights to Fathoms to Simon & Schuster in what publisher Henry Rosenbloom described as ‘a record six-figure nonfiction deal’. Recently, the book won the 2020 Nib Literary Award.

The Andrew Carnegie Medals recognise the best fiction and nonfiction books written for adult readers and published in the United States during the previous year. The fiction shortlist includes A Burning by Megha Majumdar (Scribner), Deacon King Kong by James McBride (Doubleday) and Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar (Tinder Press).

The winning authors, who each receive US$5000 (A$6850), will be chosen by a panel of library professionals from across the US and announced at an online event on 4 February, 2021.

For more information, see the ALA website.

 

Category: Awards Local news