This year's National Book Award (fiction) winner was Peter Matthiessen, with his collection titled "Shadow Country". I have not read his or any of the other finalists' work, but I feel that the other finalists were robbed of their chance at winning this highly prestigious literary award.The National Book Award's web site indicates that in order to be eligible for the award, you must meet the following criterion:
Judges consider only books written by American citizens and published in the United States between December 1 of the previous year and November 30 of the current year.
However, "Shadow Country" was published prior to 2008, in a slightly altered form.
The novel is a compilation of a trilogy he wrote and published in the 1990s.
Killing Mr. Watson (1990)
Lost Man's River (1997)
Bone by Bone (1999)
Read more here.
Given that this work was published (originally) many years prior to 2008, I don't feel it justified for him to win this award.
AMENDED SECTION
Okay, so I had a conversation with my manager regarding my views posted above, and he shed some light on my ignorance. He informed me that Matthiessen originally submitted a roughly 1,500 page manuscript to his publishers, and they wanted him to heavily edit it. The (then) end result was three separate books (the trilogy), of which he was not at all pleased with the outcome thereof. He vowed to re-edit those into a singular volume, which he thought would only take him a year or so. However, it took nearly 10 years to complete. Henceforth, we were presented with his definitive edition in April of this year. Thank you Robert.
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