The winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is The Known World by Edward P. Jones. Set in Virginia 20 years before the Civil War began, this, his debut novel is the story of life under slavery – with a difference.

It’s about a black woman slaveowner, the widow of one Henry Townsend, whose parents had bought theirs and their son’s freedom, then watched in horror as he bought slaves himself as soon as he could afford them. When he dies, the slaves expect his widow to free them, but she doesn’t, instead becoming too involved in their lives, with problematic results.

Billed as 'complex', 'impossible to rush through', but 'rewarding the patient reader' we suspect it’s a handful, but we’re keen, as ever, to read and review…

Also nominated as finalists in the fiction category were American Woman by Susan Choi and Evidence of Things Unseen by Marianne Wiggins. The full list of prizewinners can be checked out at the Pulitzer site.