Unpublished Kinsella Novel Wins Colophon Prize

The thing that will make fans of Shoeless Joe author W.P. Kinsella happiest about his win of the Colophon Prize is that what it really means is that a new book from the well-loved author is on the horizon. Kinsella’s first in 13 years. Kinsella is best known for his baseball fiction, which includes Thrill of the Grass, The Dixon Cornbelt League, Iowa Baseball Confederacy, If Wishes Were Horses, Magic Time, and the award-winning Shoeless Joe, which became the much-loved movie, Field of Dreams.

The Colophon Prize is organized and awarded by Winnipeg publisher Enfield & Wizenty, who said there was a significant increase in the number of manuscripts submitted for consideration this year, the second in which the Colophon has been offered. The Colophon offers a $5,000 advance for the best novel or story collection that combines literary and commercial appeal.

The winning entry, Kinsella’s Butterfly Winter is “an extraordinary and entertaining blend of baseball yarn, magic realism, and political satire, from a master storyteller,” according to Maurice Mierau, Enfield & Wizenty’s editor. The book tells the story of Julio and Esteban Pimental, twins whose divine destiny for baseball includes games of catch in the womb. In his aging years the Wizard, a mysterious figure who travels by hot air balloon and controls events behind the scenes, tells the story of the twins and their family to a skeptical journalist.

Butterfly Winter will be published this coming fall.