Commonwealth award for 'A Golden Age'

Tahmima Anam's A Golden Age won the Overall Best First Book Award 2008 at the Franschhoek Literary Festival in Cape Town, South Africa yesterday, says a press release of the Commonwealth Foundation.
The book, based on Bangladesh's War of Liberation in 1971, earned the prestigious award as part of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize 2008 organised by the Commonwealth Foundation.
The award, which carries a cash prize of £5,000, was handed over to Anam by South Africa's Minister for Arts and Culture Z Pallo Jordan at a ceremony. The award for Overall Best Book went to Canada's Lawrence Hill for his work, The Book of Negroes. Earlier, Anam's work was adjudged Best First Book in the Europe and Asia regional category.
Responding to her newest triumph, Tahmima Anam observed: “I'm honoured and humbled to be the first ever Bangladeshi winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. I wrote A Golden Age because I wanted the story of the Bangladesh war to reach an international audience. It is a story of great tragedy, but also represents a moment of hope and possibility for my sometimes troubled country.”
The winners for Best Book and Best First Book were selected by a panel of judges from six different countries. Commenting on A Golden Age, Justice Nicholas Hasluck, chair of the panel, said: “This is the first major fictional account of the creation of Bangladesh. Housewife, widow and mother, Rehana Haque, exemplifies the power of the individual to resist and ultimately prevail against the ravages of war. The assured and lyrical prose evokes the tumultuous birthing of a new nation in an intensely personal narrative.”
Tahmima Anam has been in the news since her book appeared last year, creating waves in global literary circles. A Golden Age is in the process of being published in 18 languages, including French, Spanish and German. The Italian, Portuguese and Dutch versions of the work are already on sale. The book has been published by HarperCollins in the US and Canada. In India, it will be published by Penguin. Meanwhile, a Bangla version of the book has already been published by Shahitya Prakash, Dhaka.
Anam is the granddaughter of late Abul Mansur Ahmad, a prominent writer and political figure of the South Asian subcontinent and Mrs Akikunnessa Ahmad, and daughter of Mahfuz Anam, Editor-Publisher of The Daily Star, and Shaheen Anam, Executive Director, Manusher Jonno Foundation. Born in Dhaka, she grew up in Paris, New York and Bangkok.
Anam has a Ph.D in social anthropology from Harvard University and holds an MA in creative writing from Royal Holloway College, where she studied with Britain's Poet Laureate Andrew Motion. Her articles have been published in the prestigious Granta magazine, The Guardian and The New York Times. She is at present a contributing editor at The New Statesman. She divides her time between Dhaka and London.