American writer George Saunders became the first winner of the British Folio Book Award. This is stated in a message posted on the award website.

The award was given to Saunders' collection of short stories, Tenth of December, published in 2013 and becoming a New York Times bestseller. As Reuters clarifies , the book by the American writer was the only representative of short prose that made it to the finals.

At the award ceremony, which took place on the evening of March 10 in London, Saunders said that he considered the jury's decision to be further evidence of a revival of interest in the short story genre. He recalled that in 2013, the Canadian writer Alice Munro, who also works primarily in short form, received the Nobel Prize in Literature.

The prize fund of the award was 40 thousand pounds sterling (about 66 thousand dollars). In addition to Saunders, the finalists for the award included Canadian poet Anne Carson, American novelist Amity Gage, as well as Jane Gardam, Kent Haruf, Rachel Kushner, Eimear McBride and Sergio de la Pava.

The Folio Literary Prize was established by the London publishing house The Folio Society and positions itself as an alternative to the Booker Prize. According to the founders of the prize, the jury will include recognized authors from all over the world. Their selection should be based on the artistic value of the works submitted in the competition, and not on their popularity.

George Saunders was born in Texas in 1958. He published his debut collection of short stories in 1996. The book was positively received by critics, after which Saunders released six more collections of stories and short stories. Now the writer, whose work has been compared to the short prose of Kurt Vonnegut, teaches literature at Syracuse University in New York. His stories were not officially published in Russian.

The first winner of the Folio Book Prize has been announced