Memory of Love wins Commonwealth Writer's Prize

Congratulations to author Aminatta Forna, who recently won the £10,000 (US$16,233) Commonwealth Writer's Prize for her novel Memory of Love. In the book, a gifted young surgeon is haunted by memories of the civil war that has decimated his Sierra Leone home; meanwhile, a patient relates disturbing stories about the post-colonial years and a well-intentioned British psychologist draws all of them into the path of an enigmatic woman. Other books that were recognized by the awards committee include Room by Canadian author Emma Donoghue, in which an abused five-year-old boy narrates the story of his life growing up in a single room, and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by UK author David Mitchell, a work set in 1799 Japan telling the story of an ambitious clerk for the Dutch East Indies Company who has only five years to amass enough money to marry his sweetheart back home.