Award-winning film-maker scoops short story prize
- ️@richardlea
- ️Mon Sep 24 2007
The American writer and film-maker Miranda July can add the world's richest short story prize to her collection of film festival accolades after winning the 2007 Frank O'Connor award this weekend.
Her first collection of short stories, No One Belongs Here More Than You, saw off competition from the Israeli writer Etgar Keret and New Zealand's Charlotte Grimshaw to win the 35,000 (£23,000) prize, after entries from Alice Munro and David Malouf were left off the shortlist.
The chairman of the judges, Pat Cotter, who had earlier defended the shortlist as a demonstration of the judges' independence, hailed Miranda July as a worthy winner.
"The award has been won by a book of original genius," he said, "a book which we believe will endure for a long time."
Perhaps, as the daughter of two Californian writers, it was only a matter of time before July turned her talents to fiction. Born in 1974, she began working as a playwright, adding music and video to create a style of multimedia performance she describes as "live movie". Her first feature-length film, the quirky romance Me and You and Everyone We Know, won a special jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival and four prizes at the Cannes Film Festival, including the Caméra d'Or.
No One Belongs Here More Than You is a collection full of a similar type of fantasy, but underpinned with a new toughness, an awareness of the real world that underlies the characters' rich inner lives. The website she designed to publicise the book, noonebelongsheremorethanyou.com, became an internet sensation
Pat Cotter was joined on the jury by the American novelist Rick Moody - one of July's inspirations for taking up the short story - as well as the Nigerian author Segun Afolabi and the Irish writer Nuala Ní Chonchúir.
The first Frank O'Connor award was won in 2005 by the Chinese-born writer Yiyun Li for her debut collection, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, which also took the 2006 Guardian first book award. Last year's prize went to Haruki Marukami for Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.