New literary prize offers US$100,000 book deal

A new literary prize has been launched that comes with a US$100,000 (A$131,480) publishing deal with Cambridge University Press, reports the Guardian. The biennial Nine Dots Prize, which is funded by the UK-based Kadas Prize Foundation, ‘seeks to reward original thinking in response to contemporary societal issues’. To enter the inaugural award, applications must submit a 3000-word book proposal on the question: ‘Are digital technologies making politics impossible?’ The prize is open to all English-language writers over the age of 18 and will be judged by a panel of academics, authors and journalists. Chair of judges Simon Goldhill said the award was ‘an incredibly exciting and unique opportunity for thinkers to table big ideas that have the potential to change the world’. ‘The board will be looking for entries that display originality in everything from the ideas put forward to the ways in which those ideas are communicated. Respondents are entirely free to critique, agree or disagree with, or reject the premise of the question, but they must engage with it fully and insightfully.’ The winner will be announced in May 2017 and will work with Cambridge University Press to produce a book of between 25,000 and 40,000 words. For more information about the prize, visit the website here.

Category: International news