New York,
December 1, 2008 -- The Mercantile Library Center for
Fiction is pleased to announce that Hannah Tinti,
and her novel The Good Thief, is the winner of
the 2008 John Sargent, Sr. First Novel Prize. The
annual prize includes a $10,000 cash award and was presented
at The Mercantile Library Center
for Fiction’s Annual Benefit and Awards Dinner in
New York City
on December 1.
A review from
The New Yorker says, “This
striking début novel is an homage to old-fashioned boy’s-own
adventure stories, and unfolds like a Robert Louis Stevenson
tale retold amid the hardscrabble squalor of Colonial New
England.”
Hannah Tinti grew up in Salem, Massachusetts. Her short
story collection, Animal Crackers, has sold in
sixteen countries and was a runner-up for the PEN/Hemingway
award. Tinti’s work
has appeared in many publications including Story, Epoch,
Alaska Quarterly Review and Best American Mystery
Stories 2003. She is co-founder and editor-in-chief of
One Story magazine.
The Good
Thief tells the story of twelve-year-old orphan, Ren,
who is missing his left hand. He was abandoned as an infant
at Saint Anthony’s Orphanage and remains there until a young
man named Benjamin Nab appears, claiming to be his long-lost
brother. Benjamin’s convincing tale of how Ren lost his
hand and his parents persuades the monks at the orphanage to
release the boy. Benjamin introduces Ren to a hardscrabble
world filled with outrageous scam artists, grave robbers,
and petty thieves. As Ren begins to find clues to his hidden
parentage he comes to suspect that Benjamin not only holds
the key to his future, but to his past as well.
In addition to the Sargent
Award, The Mercantile Library Center for Fiction presented
Jonathan Galassi, president of Farrar, Straus &
Giroux, with The Maxwell E. Perkins Award for
Distinguished Achievement in the Field of Fiction. This
award honors an editor, publisher, or agent who over the
course of his or her career has discovered, nurtured, and
championed writers of fiction. Mr. Galassi was chosen in
recognition of his career as both an editor and a publisher
who has supported and shaped the work of a dazzling array of
writers, carrying on the tradition exemplified so well by
Maxwell Perkins.
Founded in
1820, The Merc is one of the oldest cultural institutions in
New York City. With one of the finest fiction collections
in the United States, the Mercantile Library Center for
Fiction (www.mercantilelibrary.org)
is dedicated to celebrating, supporting and furthering
the creation and enjoyment of the art of fiction. The Center
utilizes all its resources, including its renowned
circulating collection and an array of innovative
programming, to engage the reading public and build a larger
audience for fiction. The Center serves as a vibrant meeting
place where prominent and emerging writers come together
with readers in conversation, and where writers can work,
exchange ideas and share their gifts