Date:28/01/2005 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2005/01/28/stories/2005012803031800.htm

International

Prize for short fiction

NEW YORK, JAN. 27. Edwidge Danticat's The Dew Breaker has been named the winner of the first Story Prize, which honours the author of an outstanding collection of short fiction.

Published by Random House's Alfred A. Knopf imprint, The Dew Breaker is a book of connected stories about Haitians and Haitian-Americans whose lives have been affected by the actions of the title character, a humble Brooklyn barber with a secret past in his native land. The Dew Breaker is a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award, which will be announced in March.

Danticat was born in Haiti and moved to the U.S. when she was 12. She is the author of the novels, Breath, Eyes, Memory; Krik? Krak!, a National Book Award finalist, and The Farming of Bones, an American Book Award winner. The runners-up were Cathy Day for The Circus in Winter and Joan Silber for Ideas of Heaven.