Award-winning fiction for holiday gifts

Indian-American author Jhumpa Lahiri with her book 'The Lowland', a story of two brothers coming of age in Calcutta in the 1950s and 60s. – AFP/Relaxnews pic, November 23, 2015.Avid readers will no doubt already have sampled some of the year's best-sellers. So, when searching for gift ideas for book-lovers, consider looking to some of the latest international prize-winning fiction for new ideas.

Marlon James: "A Brief History of Seven Killings"

The Jamaican winner of the UK's Booker Prize, which is open to writers of all nationalities, offers up this retelling of an attempted assassination of Bob Marley in 1976.

Jim Crace: "Harvest"

Dublin's Impac Prize, open to writers worldwide, this year went to British author Jim Crace's book about the final days of an English village.

Jhumpa Lahiri: "The Lowland"

Early this year, the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature went to the already well-known and Pulitzer-winning author for her story of two brothers coming of age in Calcutta in the 1950s and 60s.

Marilynne Robinson: "Lila"

Early in the year, this 2014 novel completing Robinson's Gilead trilogy won the National Book Critics Circle award in the US. Judges called it "a "miraculous and momentous American portrait".

Ali Smith: "How to Be Both"

The UK's Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction was awarded to Smith's novel about a modern teenager struggling with her sexuality and a female Renaissance artist who disguises herself as a man.

Anthony Doer: "All the Light We Cannot See"

This Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is set in occupied France during WWII and follows a French girl and a German boy whose paths cross. The jury called it "imaginative and intricate".

André Alexis: "Fifteen Dogs"

Canada's Scotiabank Giller Prize went to this Trinindad-born author's latest novel, in which the gods Hermes and Apollo grant human consciousness and language to a group of dogs. – AFP/Relaxnews, November 23, 2015.