Ghosts of the Tsunami Wins Rathbones Folio Prize
RCW is delighted to announce that Ghosts of the Tsunami by Richard Lloyd Parry has won the Rathbones Folio Prize 2018.
The £20,000 prize rewards the best literature of the year, regardless of form. Lloyd Parry, foreign correspondent and Asia Editor of The Times, lived through the earthquake in Tokyo, and spent six years reporting from the disaster zone, where he encountered ghosts and hauntings, and observed how the shock of the disaster continued to express itself in bizarre and mysterious ways. Ghosts of the Tsunami offers a heart-breaking glimpse into the lives of those struggling to find consolation in the ruins.
The judges, Jim Crace, Nikesh Shukla and Kate Summerscale said: "[Ghosts of the Tsunami] is a piece of heightened reportage about the 2011 Japanese earthquake and its devastating aftermaths, rendered as great literature. It is both harrowing and inspiring. Here is a book which not only interprets for a non-Japanese reader the subtleties and complexities of that nation’s life, especially its family life and how it copes with grief, but also has the depth and reach to close the gaps between other nations, other cultures. Read it and you will be changed for the better.”
The Rathbones Folio Prize is the only literary prize in which all books – fiction or non-fiction – are judged, strictly on merit, by the Folio Academy, a community of 300+ writers representing excellence in literature.
For more information, please see here.
(Agent for Richard Lloyd Parry: Natasha Fairweather)