Congratulations to Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer, who was awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature "because, through his condensed, translucent images, he gives us fresh access to reality".

• For the Living and the Dead: New Poems and a Memoir
• Great Enigma
• The Half-Finished Heaven
• Selected Poems Tranströmer 1954-1986

This morning, J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, announced the October launch of pottermore.com. Pottermore will offer an interactive reading experience for fans of the series, as well as Harry-Potter-related merchandise and ebooks. Fans will be able to visit Diagon Alley, get their own wand and be sorted into a house. Rowling has also promised additional information about various characters that fans will be able to access on the site - for example, the story of how Petunia and Vernon Dursley met, and what Professor McGonagall did before she came to teach at Hogwarts. Rowling says she's written about 18,000 new words on our favourite witches and wizards, and she's not even finished yet!

Registration begins on July 31st - Harry's birthday - and a million lucky registrants will be able to access the site early. Don't forget to submit your e-mail now so you can get a reminder when registration opens!

For more information, see J.K. Rowling's announcement and the Leaky Cauldron for all up-to-date news regarding Pottermore.

 

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The Governor General's Literary Awards are given annually to the best English-language and the best French-language books. Each laureate receives $25,000 and a specially crafted copy of the winning book. The 2010 the English fiction and non-fiction shortlist is below. The winner's will be announced mid-November.

Fiction
Kathleen Winter, Annabel
Emma Donoghue, Room
Sandra Birdsell, Waiting for Joe.
Drew Hayden Taylor, Motorcycles & Sweetgrass.
Dianne Warren, Cool Water.

Non-fiction
Ian Brown, The Boy in the Moon, A father's search for his disabled son.
Elizabeth Abbott, A History of Marriage.
Allan Casey, Lakeland: Journeys into the Soul of Canada.
Karen Connelly, Burmese Lessons: A Love Story.
John English, Just Watch Me: The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, 1968-2000.

José Saramago, the Portuguese writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1998 with novels that combine surrealist experimentation with a kind of sardonic peasant pragmatism, died on Friday at his home in Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. He was 87.

A novel by Mr. Saramago, "The Elephant's Journey," is to be published posthumously in English on Sept. 8 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

To read the full article from the New York Times Click Here.