20 October 2021

Lucy Caldwell has won the BBC national short story award for  'All the People Were Mean and Bad,' in which the mother of a young child takes a transatlantic flight after the death of a relative. Exploring parenthood, marriage, kindness and the glimpse of an alternative life, the story was praised by judges for its "masterful storytelling", "deep truthfulness" and "deft precision". It draws its title from the Noah’s Ark picture book that Caldwell’s protagonist is reading to her 21-month-old daughter as she flies back to London from Toronto after her cousin’s funeral. The story is available to listen to on BBC Sounds.   

Lucy Caldwell said, "I wanted to write about the distance between where we come from and where we end up; between who we think we are and who we turn out to be. Between what we dream, and what we do." 'All the People Were Mean and Bad' is taken from the collection Intimacies (Faber & Faber), and marks the third time the Northern Irish writer, who is also the author of four novels as well as stage plays and radio dramas, has been shortlisted for the ...

15 October 2021

The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2021 shortlist has been revealed, and featured is Fall: The Mystery of Robert Maxwell by John Preston. The Sunday Times bestseller is published by Penguin in the UK and details the media tycoon Robert Maxwell’s bullying, lies and looting of pension funds in an absorbing profile of the war hero turned rogue. Working Title have optioned the rights for a limited television series. 

This year's Baillie Gifford winner will be announced at an event at the Science Museum on 16th November.

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11 October 2021

Seán Hewitt and Sean Borodale have been named the winners of this year's Laurel Prize. In first place is Seán Hewitt's debut poetry collection Tongues of Fire (Jonathan Cape), which probes weighty themes such as nature, morality, sexuality, relationships, and the body. Sean Borodale's Inmates (Jonathan Cape) is the third prize winner: his poems stage encounters with insects at sites and moments of their refuge, torpor, hatching or fighting, of traversing a floor in the night or climbing a wall, of their death and decay - all in and around the house of the writer, with whom they are sharing time, as fellow inmates. 

Run by the Poetry School, the annual award is funded by Simon Armitage’s Laureate’s honorarium, which he receives annually from the Queen. It is awarded to the best collection of environmental or nature poetry published each year.

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11 October 2021

The HWA Crown Award 2021 shortlists have been revealed, and featured are Lissa Evans and Linda Colley. Lissa Evans' V for Victory (Doubleday), which is the final book in a loose trilogy, though it can be read as a stand-alone, is shortlisted for the Gold Crown Award 2021. Shortlisted for the Non-Fiction Crown Award is Linda Colley's The Gun, The Ship, and The Pen (Profile Books), which is a virtuoso global study of how nations were formed and constitutions written upends the familiar narrative at every turn.

The Gold Crown is for the best historical novel of the year, and the Non-Fiction Crown is for the best work of historical non-fiction. The Awards ceremony and HWA Crown Award winners will be announced on 24 November, 2021. 

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07 October 2021

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2021 has been awarded to the novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah, for his “uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents”. He follows fellow RCW authors Kazuo Ishiguro and Olga Tokarczuk who are the recipients of the 2017 Nobel Prize for Literature and 2018 Nobel Prize for Literature respectively. 

Abdulrazak Gurnah, who grew up on one of the islands of Zanzibar and arrived in England as a refugee in the 1960s, has published ten novels as well as a number of short stories. Anders Olsson, chair of the Nobel committee, said that the Tanzanian writer’s novels, from his debut Memory of Departure, about a failed uprising, to his most recent, the “magnificent”, Afterlives, “recoil from stereotypical descriptions and open our gaze to a culturally diversified East Africa unfamiliar to many in other parts of the world”.

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01 October 2021

The shortlist for this year's Royal Society Science Book Prize has been revealed, and featured is The End of Bias by Jessica Nordell (Granta). The book digs deep into the cognitive science and social psychology that underpin efforts to create change, and introduces us to the people who are practising a range of promising methods: the police using mindfulness to regulate high-stress situations; the doctors whose diagnostic checklists help eliminate bias in treatment; the lawyers and educators striving to embed equality all the way from the early-years playroom to the boardroom.

The Prize is run each year by a panel of expert judges, comprising eminent scientists, authors, journalists and broadcasters, who choose the book that they believe makes popular science writing compelling and accessible to the public. This year's winner will be announced on 29th November, 2021. 

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21 September 2021

The shortlists for the second Diverse Book Awards have been revealed, recognising inclusivity in children’s, YA and adult fiction. Ingrid Persaud is shortlisted in the adult fiction category for Love After Love (Faber), which recently picked up the Costa Fist Novel Award and the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award. Love After Love is the story tracing the life of a Trinidadian family over two decades, written in Trinidadian prose and probing the intricate connection between love and trust, and what happens to the former when the latter is disrupted. 

The three winners from each category will receive a bundle of prizes including a trophy, a six-month PR and marketing membership of Literally PR’s 100 Club, a feature and virtual event with independent online bookshop Back To Books, editorial content in publications Bad Form and Pen&Inc, plus the opportunity to be part of two author panel events, one hosted by The Author School and the other with Simon & Schuster. The children's winner will have their book featured as part of World Book Day Book Club and a school visit organised by World of Diversity.

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14 September 2021

American writer Richard Powers has been shortlisted for this year's Booker Prize, alongside five other writers. He was previously shortlisted for The Overstory (Cornerstone) in 2018 and longlisted for Orfeo (Atlantic Books) in 2014, and returns this year with Bewilderment (William Heinemann). The judges said they were "very moved" by the novel, which follows a widowed astrobiologist and his young son as they find their way in a world that has cast the boy as aberrant. They said: "Powers thrills us with intricate scientific ideas even as he inhabits the consciousness of the grieving, non-neurotypical child—and shows us the loneliness and complexity involved in parenting him."

This year's winner will be announced on 3rd November in an award ceremony held in partnership with the BBC at Broadcasting House’s Radio Theatre. It will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 4’s "Front Row", BBC iPlayer, and the BBC News Channel. 

Click here to read Richard Powers...

14 September 2021

Lucy Caldwell has been shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award for the third time. She is nominated for 'All the People Were Mean and Bad,' which is taken from her new collection, Intimacies (Faber & Faber). It is among the short stories organisers thought to be "shaped by writing about kindness, compassion, journeys and writing during lockdown", with judges praising the submissions for their themes of humanity, compassion and hope. 

Now in its 16th year and run with Cambridge University, the award is one of the most prestigious for a single short story, with the winning author receiving £15,000 and four further shortlisted authors £600 each. 

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09 September 2021

The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2021 longlist has been revealed, and featured is Fall: The Mystery of Robert Maxwell by John Preston. This Sunday Times bestseller is published in the UK by Penguin and details the media tycoon Robert Maxwell’s bullying, lies and looting of pension funds in an absorbing profile of the war hero turned rogue. Working Title have optioned the rights for a limited television series. 

This year's Baillie Gifford shortlist will be announced on 15th October, live from the Cheltenham Literature Festival. The winner will be announced at an event at the Science Museum on 16th November.

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06 September 2021

Best-selling crime author Ian Rankin has written a TV series for Channel 4 that will see members of the public take on the role of detective and lead their own investigations. Murder Island, which was filmed during the summer and airs next month, will blend factual, drama and competition formats. Murder Island, which was filmed during the summer and airs on Channel 4 next month, will blend factual, drama and competition formats. The six-part series is based around a group of amateur detectives who will compete to solve a crime and build a “watertight case” that can stand up in court. Contestants will be overseen by some of the UK’s leading senior investigating officers.

Ian Rankin said, “When it comes to writing a whodunnit I usually call the shots, taking the reader only to the places I want them to visit and showing them only the characters I want them to see. Murder Island is different. The detectives can follow any strand, uncovering clues as they go and asking the suspects any questions they like. Will I manage to stay one step ahead of them? I think I’ve constructed my twistiest story yet — so let’s see.”

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06 September 2021

Katie and Kevin Tsang's Dragon Mountain (Simon & Schuster) has been shortlisted for the Sainsbury's Children's Book Awards 2021. This is the first book in Katie and Kevin Tsang's Dragon Realm series, a ROARsome fantasy, magic, adventure that follows a group of children on an epic quest to free a quartet of fire-breathing beasts. It was also recently shortlisted for the British Book Awards and longlisted for the Diverse Book Awards. 

Now in their eighth year, the Sainsbury's Children's Book Awards aim to highlight the best children's books for families to share together. Judged by a panel of experts, the awards aim to encourage parents and carers to spend more time reading with their children.

06 September 2021

Jean-Baptiste Del Amo has been named the winner of the Prix du Roman Fnac 2021. He picked up the award for his new book Le Fils de l’Homme, which explores the themes of a transmission of violence from one generation to another as well as the eternal tragedy that is knotted between fathers and sons.

Le Fils de l’Homme is first published in France by Gallimard. Forthcoming translations include an English edition translated by Frank Wynne, published in the UK by Fitzcarraldo and in the US by Grove Atlantic. The book has also been acquired for release by Text Publishing in Australia, Todavia in Brazil, Gutkind in Denmark, Matthes & Seitz in Germany, Neri Pozza in Italy, De Bezige Bij in the Netherlands, Seix Barral in Spain, Bonniers in Sweden and Can Yayinlari in Turkey. 

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01 September 2021

Professor Ramachandra Guha is announced as the second winner of the Howard Milton Award for Cricket Scholarship. His latest work, The Commonwealth of Cricket: A Lifelong Love Affair with the Most Subtle and Sophisticated Game Known to Humankind (William Collins, 2020) is a personal account of the transformation of Indian cricket from the author’s youth in Uttar Pradesh in the 1960s through to his experience as a Board of Control for Cricket in India administrator in 2017.

Ramachandra Guha said, ‘I am delighted and honoured to accept this Award and look forward to giving the Sir Derek Birley keynote lecture at the BSSH Conference at De Montfort University in 2021.'

This award, a collaboration between The Cricket Society and the British Society of Sports History, seeks to recognise good cricket writing and research whether of an ‘academic’ or ‘popular’ nature. Winners are decided on the recommendations of a panel drawn from officers of both organisations.

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13 August 2021

Sam Byers has been shortlisted for this year's Gordon Burn Prize, alongside five other writers. He is nominated for his novel Come Join Our Disease (Faber & Faber), a darkly comic and profoundly affecting book about resistance, radicalism and redemption.

The prize is run in partnership by the Gordon Burn Trust, New Writing North, Faber & Faber and Durham Book Festival. The winner will be announced at Durham Book Festival, a Durham County Council festival, on Thursday 14 October 2021. RCW author Peter Pomerantsev won the Gordon Burn Prize in 2020 for This is Not Propaganda, his study on the war against reality. 

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12 August 2021

The HWA Crown Award 2021 longlists have been revealed, and featured are Lissa Evans and Linda Colley. Lissa Evans' V for Victory (Doubleday), which is the final book in a loose trilogy, though it can be read as a stand-alone, is longlisted for the Gold Crown Award 2021. Longlisted for the Non-Fiction Crown Award is Linda Colley's The Gun, The Ship, and The Pen (Profile Books), which is a virtuoso global study of how nations were formed and constitutions written upends the familiar narrative at every turn.

The Gold Crown is for the best historical novel of the year, and the Non-Fiction Crown is for the best work of historical non-fiction. The shortlists will be revealed on 5 October, 2021 and the Awards ceremony and HWA Crown Award winners announced on 24 November, 2021. 

Click here for more.

12 August 2021

Jonathan Schneer's The Lockhart Plot (Oxford University Press) has been shortlisted for the Pushkin Prize 2021 for the best non-fiction writing on Russia. The book follows the rollicking story of how a maverick British envoy to the Bolshevik regime assisted in a couner-revolutionary plot to bring down Lenin, and to install one that would continue the war against Germany on the Eastern Front. The Lockhart Plot was a turning point in world history, except it failed to turn.

The judges for the award said the prize is designed to "showcase, reward and encourage original, insightful and well-written books and to encourage public understanding and intelligent debate around the country and its culture."

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