Haruki Murakami was awarded the second Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award for Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, his third collection of short stories to be published in English. The prize is awarded to new collections published in English during the last 12 months, and will be shared between Murakami and his translators, Philip Gabriel and Jay Rubin.

Click here for a complete list of titles by Haruki Murakami.

Veteran journalist and social critic Oriana Fallaci has died at the age of 76 in her hometown of Florence, Italy. Fallaci's most recent and highly controversial books include The Force of Reason (Rizzoli, 2006) and The Rage and the Pride (Rizzoli, 2002).

Hisham Matar's In the Country of Men is on the shortlist for the 2006 Man Booker Prize for Fiction. The winner will be announced on Oct. 10th. Longlisted titles from Random House are as follows:

•Theft by Peter Carey
•The Other Side of the Bridge by Mary Lawson
•The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud
•Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
•The Ruby in Her Navel by Barry Unsworth

John Updike has been awarded the Rea Award for the Short Story. The prize is given annually to a living American or Canadian writer whose work has made a "significant contribution to the discipline of the short story as an art form." The jurors were previous winners Ann Beattie, Richard Ford and Joyce Carol Oates.

Click here for a complete list of titles by John Updike.

Naguib Mahfouz, the great Egyptian novelist, died on August 30th in Cairo aged 94. Mahfouz was the Arab world's most prominent literary figure, winning the Nobel prize in 1988. Best known for his masterpiece, The Cairo Trilogy (Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, and Sugar Street), he wrote 50 books over his lifetime, including plays, short stories, essays and 34 novels. His most recent work is The Seventh Heaven, a collection of stories to be published in December by Anchor. He is survived by his wife and two daughters.

Click here for a complete list of titles by Naguib Mahfouz.