Annal:2007 Orange Prize for Fiction
From AwardAnnals
Results of the Orange Prize in the year 2007. For a ranked list of books, try an honor roll:
Half of a Yellow Sun: A Novel
- 2007 Orange winner
- 2006 JT Black-Fiction shortlist
- 2006 NBCC–Fiction finalist
- Score: 22.57
A masterly, haunting new novel re-creates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra’s impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in Nigeria in the 1960s, and the chilling violence that followed. Adichie brilliantly evokes the promise and the devastating disappointments that marked this time and place, bringing us one of the most powerful, dramatic, and intensely emotional pictures of modern Africa that we have ever had.
Arlington Park: A Novel
- 2007 Orange shortlist
- Score: 6.57
Arlington Park, a modern-day English suburb, is a place devoted to the profitable ordinariness of life. Amidst its leafy avenues and comfortable houses, its residents live out the dubious accomplishments of civilization: material prosperity, personal freedom, and moral indifference. Set over the course of a single rainy day, the novel moves from one household to another, and through the passing hours conducts a deep examination of its characters’ lives. Darkly comic, deeply affecting, and wise, Arlington Park is a page-turning imagining of the extraordinary inner nature of ordinary life, by one of Britain’s most exciting young novelists.
A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers: A Novel
- 2007 Orange shortlist
- Score: 6.57
Twenty-three-year-old Zhuang, the daughter of shoe factory owners in rural China, has come to London to study English. She calls herself Z because English people can’t pronounce her name, but when she arrives at Heathrow she’s no better at their language. Set loose to find her way through a confusion of cultural gaffes and grammatical mishaps, she meets a man who changes everything. From the moment he smiles at her, she enters a new world of sex, freedom, and self-discovery. But she also realizes that, in the West, “love” does not always mean the same as in China, and that you can learn all the words in the English language and still not understand your lover.
Digging to America: A Novel
- 2007 Orange shortlist
- Score: 6.57
Two families, who would otherwise never have come together, meet by chance at the Baltimore airport – the Donaldsons, a very American couple, and the Yazdans, Maryam’s fully assimilated son and his attractive Iranian wife. Each couple is awaiting the arrival of an adopted infant daughter from Korea. After the instant babies from distant Asia are delivered, Bitsy Donaldson impulsively invites the Yazdans to celebrate: an “arrival party” that from then on is repeated every year as the two families become more and more deeply intertwined. Even Maryam is drawn in—up to a point. When she finds herself being courted by Bitsy Donaldson’s recently widowed father, all the values she cherishes—her traditions, her privacy, her otherness–are suddenly threatened.
The Inheritance of Loss: A Novel
- 2006 Booker winner
- 2006 NBCC–Fiction winner
- 2007 Orange shortlist
- 2006 Kiriyama-Fiction finalist
- Score: 32.56
Kiran Desai’s first novel, Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, was published to unanimous acclaim in over twenty-two countries. Now Desai takes us to the northeastern Himalayas where a rising insurgency challenges the old way of life.
In a crumbling, isolated house at the foot of Mount Kanchenjunga lives an embittered old judge who wants to retire in peace when his orphaned granddaughter Sai arrives on his doorstep. The judge’s chatty cook watches over her, but his thoughts are mostly with his son, Biju, hopscotching from one New York restaurant job to…
The Observations: A Novel
- 2007 Orange shortlist
- Score: 6.57
The Observations is a brilliantly original, endlessly intriguing story of one woman’s journey from a difficult past into an even more disturbing present, narrated by one of the most vividly imagined heroines in recent fiction. This powerful story of secrets and suspicions, hidden histories and mysterious disappearances is at once compelling and heart-warming, showing the redemptive power of loyalty and friendship. A hugely assured and darkly funny debut, The Observations is certain to establish Jane Harris as a significant new literary talent.
