Gary Shteyngart Wins Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize

Posted on May 28, 2011

The Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize was established in 2000. The UK literary award for comic writing was named in honor of P.G. Wodehouse. This year an American author won the award for the first time. His novel, Super Sad True Love Story, bested works by Manu Joseph, India Knight, Sam Leith and Catherine O'Flynn.

The Guardian reports that Wodehouse Prize judge Peter Florence says, "Gary Shteyngart's writing is thrilling. He's a staggeringly clever satirist who manages to create worlds and people of perfect coherence and outrageous misfortune."

For winning the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize, Shteyngart will receive a jeroboam of champagne and a set of Wodehouse books. The Guardian says Shteyngart will also be presented with a pig named after his novel. Super Sad True Love Story is an odd name for a pig.