Jamaican Short Listed For 2008 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize

Erna Brodber’s fourth novel the ‘The Rainmaker’s Mistake’, has been short listed in the Best Book category for the Canada and Caribbean region of the 2008 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize.
The Jamaican writer, sociologist and lecturer won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for the Caribbean and Canadian region in 1989 for her novel Myal.
Ms. Brodber’s published works include ‘Jane and Louisa Will Soon Come Home,’ which was her first novel and ‘Louisiana’ as well as studies of Caribbean women and black consciousness. She has worked for the Institute of Social and Economic Research and is a recipient of the Musgrave Gold Medal.
The Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, now in its 22nd year, is organised and funded by the Commonwealth Foundation with the support of the Macquarie Group Foundation. Its objective is to reward the upsurge of new Commonwealth fiction and ensure that works of merit reach a wider audience outside their country of origin.The two Canada Caribbean regional winners for Best Book and Best First Book will be announced during Commonwealth Week on March 13, and will enter the final stage of the 2008 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize where they will go head-to-head with the six other regional winners.
In a unique aspect of the competition, all regional winners will be invited to take part in a week-long programme of readings, community activities and other public events alongside the final Pan-Commonwealth judging in South Africa in May.
The week’s programme will culminate in the announcement of the overall Best Book and Best First Book winners at a special ceremony as part of the 2008 Franschhoek Literary Festival in the Cape Winelands District, on Sunday, May 18. A sum of