Thanks in part to [LET ME UPGRADE YOU] for letting me know about this:
Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie landed the Orange Prize, one of the literary world's top awards given to women writers, for a novel set in the 1960's Biafran civil war.
"Half of a Yellow Sun" had been hot favourite with bookmakers to land the £30,000 prize for the writer, shortlisted for the Orange in 2004 for her debut novel "The Purple Hibiscus".[source]
"This really comes as a wonderful, wonderful surprise," Adichie said after collecting the prize.
But she had feared the worst after having her handbag stolen at a London reading of her book and because the novel was so strongly fancied to win.
"When I was told I was the bookies' favourite in that wonderfully curious British tradition of betting on everything, I immediately thought it was the kiss of death," she said.
The book tells the story of three characters -- a poor houseboy, a glamorous woman
and a shy Englishman - who are caught up in the conflict and have to run for their lives.
The Orange, set up in 1996, had a distinctly international flavour in 2007 with authors also shortlisted from Britain, China, India and the United States for the prize, awarded to the best book written in English by a woman over the past 12 months.
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