Richard Osman’s THE MAN WHO DIED TWICE shortlisted for 2022 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction
Richard Osman’s second novel in The Thursday Murder Club series, The Man Who Died Twice, has been shortlisted for the 2022 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction.
The award is the UK’s longest running prize for comic fiction and previous winners have included bestselling novelists Alexander McCall Smith, Helen Fielding, Howard Jacobson and Marina Lewycka. The press release said:
In a vintage year, when currently nothing else in the world is seemingly funny, the 2022 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction has announced an extended shortlist of twelve titles in contention for this year’s award, in recognition of the exceptionally strong list of submissions it has received.
The twelve books on this year’s list highlight the funniest novels of the past twelve months, which best evoke the Wodehouse spirit of witty characters and perfectly-timed comic phrases.
The judges for this year’s prize are: Peter Florence (Event producer, reader and co-founder of the European Festivals Forest), David Campbell (publisher, Everyman’s Library), Sindhu Vee (comedian), James Naughtie (broadcaster and author), and Justin Albert (Vice President of Hay Festival and Director of National Trust Wales).
Chair of the Judges, Peter Florence, commented: “What a feast of wonderfully entertaining writing and a delightful spectrum of comedy, wit, satire and knockabout farce. There are great books here, and authors who mine the darker seams of life with humour and humanity.”
The winner of this year’s Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction will be announced at a reception on Tuesday 22 November at the Bollinger Burlington Bar in London. The winner will be awarded with a jeroboam of Bollinger Special Cuvée, a case of Bollinger La Grande Année, the complete set of the Everyman’s Library P.G. Wodehouse collection and a pig named after their winning book.
The shortlist was chosen from 63 submissions, published between 1 June 2021 and 31 May 2022.