Here - The Desmond Elliott Prize

THE
DESMOND
PRIZE 2012
5TH ANNIVERSARY
The Prize for New Fiction
The Desmond Elliott Prize
is supported by
About
the Prize
Now in its fifth year and firmly established as the pre-eminent award
for a first novel written in English and published in the UK, the £10,000
Desmond Elliott Prize is named after the literary agent and publisher
Desmond Elliott. It aims to support writers, boosting both cash and
confidence, as they embark on the all-important second novel, widely
regarded as the trickiest step in a writer’s career, and they seek to
consolidate their success.
Launched as a biennial award, the inaugural Prize, presented in 2008 to
Nikita Lalwani for her novel Gifted, was so well received that the trustees
were prompted to make it an annual award. The 2009 winner, Edward
Hogan, successful with Blackmoor, was followed in 2010 by Ali Shaw with
The Girl with Glass Feet.
The most recent recipient was Anjali Joseph, awarded the 2011 Desmond
Elliott Prize for Saraswati Park, who said: “There were two great gifts for me
in winning the Prize. Of course, the money, which will enable me to
continue writing full time, is an enormous privilege. But it means as much,
in a more enduring way, to have had the judges put their faith in the novel
and its characters. From the longlisting to the award ceremony, there was a
sense of intrigue and fun about the Prize that seemed to derive from its
generous, eccentric donor.”
“From the longlisting to the award
ceremony, there was a sense of intrigue
and fun about the Prize that seemed
to derive from its generous, eccentric
donor.”
Anjali Joseph, Winner 2011
The Prize was endowed by Desmond Elliott, one of the most charismatic
and successful men in publishing, who died in August 2003. He stipulated
that the award should enrich the careers of new writers. Thus the Prize is
dedicated to supporting and celebrating aspiring authors and their fiction.
In choosing a winner, the judges look for a novel of depth and breadth
with a compelling narrative. The work must be vividly written, confidently
realised and should contain original and arresting characters. The winner
is announced at Fortnum & Mason in London at an awards ceremony held
in June each year.
Liz Thomson, Trustee, Desmond Elliott Prize
About
Desmond Elliott
Desmond Elliott’s life reads like a page-turning rags-to-riches story.
He was born in London in 1930 and at a young age moved to Dublin
with his family. He was placed in the Royal Masonic Orphanage as the
death of his father meant his mother had insufficient means to support
both her sons.
Despite winning a scholarship to Trinity College, Dublin, Desmond left for
England in 1947 with just £2 in his pocket, starting his publishing career at
Macmillan as an office boy. Ten years at publishers Hutchinson and Michael
Joseph followed, after which Desmond moved to The Bodley Head to
work for the legendary
Max Reinhardt. It wasn’t
long before he was
sacked, after objecting to
Reinhardt interfering with
his advertising plans.
His next job lasted no
longer but did result in a
handsome redundancy
cheque which allowed
Ernest Hecht, Souvenir Press
Desmond to set up his
own publishing company, Arlington Books, in 1960.
“Desmond was a one
off, a man with an
enormous love of books
and literature.”
It was Desmond who spotted the potential of
Jilly Cooper, then a journalist on the Sunday
Times women’s pages. Desmond’s dedication,
coupled with creative business sense, was
key to the building of a list of hugely
successful novelists.
Charismatic, witty and waspish,
Elliott lived his life with verve.
He drank only champagne,
crossed the Atlantic on Concorde
and used Fortnum & Mason as his
local shop. He died in August 2003
at the age of 73.
The Desmond Elliott Prize 2012
The Land of
Decoration
by Grace
McCleen
(Chatto &
Windus)
The Last
Hundred
Days
by Patrick
McGuinness
(Seren)
A heartbreaking story of good
and evil, belief and doubt,
The Land of Decoration is the
miniature world imagined by
the novel’s narrator, ten-yearold Judith McPherson. She
and her father don’t have
much – their house is full of
dusty relics of the mother
she’s never known. But where
others might see rubbish,
Judith sees possibility.
Set during Ceausescu’s last
hundred days in power in
1989, Patrick McGuinness’s
debut novel explores a world
of danger, repression and
corruption. This is the story
of the dissidents, party
apparatchiks, blackmarketeers, diplomats, spies
and ordinary Romanians,
all intertwined against a
background of severe poverty
and repression as Europe’s
most paranoid regime plays
out its bloody endgame.
‘This is a tremendously affecting
novel, skillfully and arrestingly
written, and one that packs a big
emotional punch.’
© Tom York
Andrew Holgate, Sunday Times
Grace McCleen
was born in Wales.
She read English
Literature at the
University of
Oxford and
completed an MA at York
before becoming a full-time
writer and musician. She now
lives in London. In January
2012, she was selected as one
of the Waterstones 11. The
Land of Decoration was also
picked as one of 2012’s mustread novels by Sunday Times
Culture.
‘McGuinness is an accomplished poet
and writes with superb clarity…
This is a novel that rages and flows
by turn, but rarely disappoints.’
Richard Gwyn, Independent
Patrick
McGuinness was
born in Tunisia in
1968 and lived in
Bucharest in the
years leading up
to the Romanian revolution.
His poetry collections include
The Canals of Mars (2004) and
Jilted City (2010). Patrick has
also won an Eric Gregory
Award, the American Poetry
Foundation’s Levinson Prize
and the Poetry Business Prize.
Shortlist
The Unlikely
Pilgrimage of
Harold Fry
by Rachel
Joyce
(Doubleday)
An immaculately conceived,
beautifully written novel.
Harold Fry is an unlikely hero.
Retired and living in Devon,
he receives a letter out of the
blue. It’s from Queenie, a
former colleague of Harold’s
who is dying of cancer in
Berwick-upon-Tweed.
Intending to post a reply,
Harold finds himself walking
past the postbox. He keeps
on walking, until it becomes
clear he is going to walk all
the way to Northumberland
to deliver his message in
person.
‘From the moment I met Harold
Fry, I didn’t want to leave him.
Impossible to put down.’
Erica Wagner, The Times
Rachel Joyce,
who was born in
1962, has written
over twenty
original plays for
Radio 4, and
dramatised both classic and
new novels. In 2007 she won
the Tinniswood Award for
best radio play, and has been
longlisted several times for a
Sony Radio Academy Award.
She moved to writing after a
twenty-year career in acting.
The Desmond Elliott Prize 2012
Longlist
Absolution
by Patrick Flanery
(Atlantic Books)
Before I Go to Sleep
by SJ Watson
(Doubleday)
‘Uncommonly
thought-provoking…
a richly imaginative novelist.’
‘It’s exceptionally accomplished.
The structure is so dazzling it
almost distracts you from the
quality of the writing.’
Philip Gourevitch,
New Yorker
Bed
by David Whitehouse
(Canongate Books)
‘Whitehouse is terrific.
A magical enthusiast.’
Financial Times
© Graham Jepson
Patrick Flanery was born in
California in 1975 and raised in
Omaha, Nebraska. After earning
a BFA in Film from New York
University’s Tisch School of the Arts
he worked for three years in the
film industry before moving to the UK, where
he completed a doctorate in 20th-century
English Literature at Oxford. As well as
publishing articles on British and South African
literature and film in a number of academic
journals, he has written for Slightly Foxed
and the Times Literary Supplement. He lives
in London.
John O’Connell,
Guardian
SJ Watson was born in the
Midlands, lives in London and
worked in the NHS for a number
of years. In 2009 Watson was
accepted into the first Faber
Academy ‘Writing a Novel’
Course, a programme that covers all aspects
of the novel-writing process. Before I Go to
Sleep is the result. Now sold in over thirty
languages around the world, it has also been
acquired for film adaptation by Ridley Scott’s
production company, Scott Free, with Rowan
Joffe to direct.
The Bellwether Revivals
by Benjamin Wood
(Simon & Schuster)
‘Wood’s confident, sometimes
creepy debut novel draws you in –
like the faintly heard strain from
that hauntingly played pipe-organ
– and then, once you’re inside,
holds on, ever tightening its grip.’
Daniel Hahn,
Independent
David Whitehouse was born in
1981. His journalism has appeared
in the Guardian, the Sunday Times,
the Independent, Esquire, Time
Out, and the Observer Magazine.
His first short film, The Archivist,
produced by Warp Films and the BBC, opened
the BBC Electric Proms in 2008. Bed was the
inaugural winner of the To Hell with Prizes
Award in 2010.
Benjamin Wood was born in
1981 and grew up in north-west
England. In 2004, he was awarded
a Commonwealth Scholarship
to attend the MFA Creative
Writing Programme at the
University of British Columbia, Canada,
where he was also fiction editor of the
Canadian literary journal PRISM International.
Benjamin is now a lecturer in Creative Writing
at Birkbeck, University of London.
Care of Wooden Floors
by Will Wiles
(HarperPress)
The Spider King’s Daughter
by Chibundu Onuzo
(Faber & Faber)
‘Care of Wooden Floors
is funny, beguiling and quietly
profound; it’s a wonderfully
well-crafted debut.’
‘Two teenagers from opposite sides
of the tracks are the central players
in a fiery Nigerian revenge
tragedy… the results are
explosive.’
David Winters,
Times Literary Supplement
Will Wiles was born in India in
1978. He is deputy editor of
Icon, the monthly architecture
and design magazine, where for
three years he has written about
everything from Pot Noodles to
Jumbo Jets. He once spent a week trying
to find a Chihuahua skeleton.
The Missing Shade
of Blue
by Jennie Erdal
(Little, Brown)
Catherine Taylor,
Guardian
Chibundu Onuzo was born in
Nigeria in 1991 and is the youngest
of four children. She is currently
studying History at King’s College,
London. Having written The Spider
King’s Daughter at the age of
eighteen, she is the youngest woman to be
offered a two-book deal with Faber & Faber.
When not writing, Chibundu can be found
playing the piano or singing.
‘Compelling. Jennie Erdal has a
fine eye for the dynamics of sexual
relationships.’
Kate Saunders,
The Times
Jennie Erdal is the author of
the critically acclaimed memoir
Ghosting (‘Sad, funny and
beautifully written’ –Sunday
Times) which was a Radio 4
Book of the Week, serialised in
the Guardian, extracted in Granta, and
shortlisted for two awards. Jennie lives in
St Andrews, Scotland.
“I believe that it is
important to have
one or two really
influential enemies.
They tend to talk
about one to all the
right people.”
Desmond Elliott
© Karen Wallace
2012
Judges
Sam Llewellyn (Chair)
Sam Llewellyn has worked
as a novelist, columnist and
editor ever since Desmond
Elliott commissioned his first
novel in 1976. His work is
informed by a life-long
obsession with the sea,
which has taken him all over
the world in boats large and
small. Several of his books are set in his native
Isles of Scilly. His children’s books include the
Little Darlings series, written as an antidote
to Peter Pan; and the Lyonesse series, a
reimagining of the Arthurian canon set during
the sinking of the British Atlantis. He is a
contributor of articles about travel, gardens
and boats to the Daily Telegraph. He is
Editor and Publisher of the Marine Quarterly,
a journal of the sea.
Tom Gatti
Tom Gatti joined The Times
in 2003 and is currently
Editor of the Saturday
Review section. He also
writes book reviews,
interviews and arts features
for the paper. He has judged
the Booktrust Teenage Book
Prize and chaired events at
the Asia House Festival of Asian Literature and
The Times Cheltenham Literature Festival.
Caroline Mileham
Caroline Mileham is Head
of Books at Play.com. She
started her career on the
Buying team at Waterstone’s
Head Office and went on to
become the company’s
Fiction and Non-Fiction
Manager, responsible for
all central buying and
promotions for these areas. She moved to
Borders as Head of Books in 2005 and spent
two years there before moving to her
current role.
“I was fired ten days before my thirtieth
birthday. I was terribly annoyed by an
advertisement that my boss wanted to place
and having been told that I did not realise
that this would turn him into one of
London’s leading publishers overnight,
one word borrowed another and I replied
I don’t think even two full pages in the
Sunday Times would do that.”
Desmond Elliott
The Desmond Elliott Prize
Longlist
Winner
Author Pic © J Humphries
2011
Saraswati Park
by Anjali Joseph
(Fourth Estate)
‘Exuding “a lovely quiet”,
this is a meticulously written tale
of hope and regret.’
The Afterparty
by Leo Benedictus
(Jonathan Cape)
Anna Scott, Guardian
Anjali Joseph was born in Bombay in 1978 and
read English at Trinity College, Cambridge.
She taught English at the Sorbonne, has written
for the Times of India and been a Commissioning
Editor for ELLE (India). Saraswati Park also won
the Betty Trask Prize and India’s Vodafone
Crossword Book Award for Fiction. Her second
novel, Another Country, has just been published
by Fourth Estate.
Coconut Unlimited
by Nikesh Shukla
(Quartet)
The Collaborator
by Mirza Waheed
(Viking)
Shortlist
Boxer, Beetle
by Ned Beauman
(Sceptre)
‘Astonishingly assured... Beauman writes
with real flair and invention... Many first
novels are judged promising. Boxer,
Beetle arrives fully formed: original,
exhilarating and hugely enjoyable.’
Author Pic © Jonathan Ring
Peter Parker, Sunday Times
Pigeon English
by Stephen Kelman
(Bloomsbury)
Pub Walks in Underhill Country
by Nat Segnit
(Fig Tree)
The Spider Truces
by Tom Connolly
(Myriad Editions)
A Vision of Loveliness
by Louise Levene
(Bloomsbury)
‘One of the hardest things in fiction is to
write from a child’s point of view –
Kelman does it brilliantly.’
Alex Clark, Guardian
Who is Mr Satoshi?
by Jonathan Lee
(William Heinemann)
The Desmond Elliott Prize
2010
Longlist
Winner
The Girl with
Glass Feet
By Ali Shaw
(Atlantic Books)
The Upright Piano Player
by David Abbott
(MacLehose Press)
‘Fantastically imagined… Only a
heart of glass would be unmoved.’
Robin Romm, New York Times
Book Review
Ali Shaw was born in 1982 and grew up in Dorset.
He graduated from Lancaster University with a
first class degree in English Literature and has
worked as a bookseller in London and Oxford.
His second novel, The Man Who Rained, was
published in 2012. He is currently at work on his
third novel.
Author Pic © Rich Tatham
Shortlist
The Hungry Ghosts
by Anne Berry
(Blue Door)
Rupture
by Simon Lelic
(Picador)
Before the Earthquake
by Maria Allen
(Tindal Street Press)
‘A brooding mystery:
atmospheric and deftly
paced.’
The Shadow of a Smile
by Kachi A. Ozumba
(Alma Books)
Author Pic © Sandi Friend
Hephzibah Anderson,
Daily Mail
Talk of the Town
by Jacob Polley
(Picador)
‘Capturing the chaotic
rhythms of these
young lives in vivid
yet unsentimental
prose, Polley hits the
perfect pitch.’
The Breaking of Eggs
by Jim Powell
(Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
Designs for a Happy Home
by Matthew Reynolds
(Bloomsbury)
Anita Sethi,
Independent
Beauty
by Raphael Selbourne
(Tindal Street Press)
The Desmond Elliott Prize
2009
Longlist
Winner
Blackmoor
by Edward Hogan
(Simon & Schuster)
‘There’s a subtle magic
to Hogan’s prose, and a
passionate concern for
the part of the world
where this novel is based, which invites
comparison with DH Lawrence –
but that would be lazy. This novel…
has confidence, mystery and an
entrancing sense of itself.’
Tom Boncza-Tomaszewski,
Independent on Sunday
Edward Hogan was born in Derby in 1980 and
now lives in Brighton. He is a graduate of the MA
creative writing course at UEA and a recipient of
the David Higham Award. Blackmoor was also
shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of
the Year Award and the Dylan Thomas Prize. His
second novel, The Hunger Trace, was published in
2011 and his first novel for young adults, Daylight
Saving, was published by Walker in February 2012.
Author Pic © David Burke
Shortlist
A Girl Made of Dust
by Nathalie Abi-Ezzi
(Fourth Estate)
‘Captivating. A subtle,
pertinent depiction of
civilian life in the midst
of bewildering conflict.’
Author Pic © Jane Bown
Catherine Taylor,
Guardian
The Rescue Man
by Anthony Quinn
(Jonathan Cape)
‘Ambitiously
conceived...perfect pitch
when it comes to the
prose of each period’
Kate Kellaway,
Observer
The Behaviour of Moths
by Poppy Adams
(Virago)
Girl in a Blue Dress
by Gaynor Arnold
(Tindal Street Press)
Mr Toppit
by Charles Elton
(Viking)
Never Never
by David Gaffney
(Tindal Street Press)
The Redemption of Alexander Seaton
by Shona MacLean
(Quercus)
Little Gods
by Anna Richards
(Picador)
The Alternative Hero
by Tim Thornton
(Jonathan Cape)
The Desmond Elliott Prize
2008
Longlist
Winner
Author Pic © Nishat Lalwani
Gifted
by Nikita Lalwani
(Penguin Books)
‘Superb debut novel…
The searing narrative
is unflinchingly and
tenderly written.’
Broken
by Daniel Clay
(HarperPress)
Stevie Davies, Independent
Nikita Lalwani’s first novel was
also longlisted for the Man
Booker Prize 2007, shortlisted for the Costa First
Novel Award and the Sunday Times Young Writer
of the Year. It is currently being translated into
sixteen languages. Her new novel, The Village,
has just been published by Viking.
Author Pic © J Bauer
Shortlist
Child 44
by Tom Rob Smith
(Simon & Schuster)
‘A bravura crime
narrative, with a
maverick cop tracking
a killer in the face of his
disapproving superiors. But the added
value here is a pungent recreation of a
time and place: Stalin’s pitiless Soviet
Union of the 1950s.’
Submarine
by Joe Dunthorne
(Hamish Hamilton)
The Truth About These Strange Times
by Adam Foulds
(Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
The Outcast
by Sadie Jones
(Chatto & Windus)
Kill Your Friends
by John Niven
(William Heinemann)
Barry Forshaw, Independent
Sunday at
The Cross Bones
by John Walsh
(Fourth Estate)
‘A voluble, stylish,
moving gem... comic,
sympathetic, deeply
affecting... It’s an enthralling circus
of a book.’
Gods Behaving Badly
by Marie Phillips
(Vintage)
Random Acts of Heroic Love
by Danny Scheinmann
(Doubleday)
Neel Mukherjee, Sunday Telegraph
The Messenger
of Athens
by Anne Zouroudi
(Bloomsbury)
The Desmond Elliott
Judges
© Eleanor Stourton
2011
Edward Stourton
(Chair), broadcaster
and author
Fanny Blake,
novelist and Books
Editor of Woman&Home
Amy Worth, Head of
Content Acquisition,
Kindle UK at
Amazon.co.uk
Elizabeth Buchan
(Chair), novelist and
former publisher
William Skidelsky,
Literary Editor of
the Observer
James Daunt, founder
of Daunt Books and
Managing Director
of Waterstones
Candida Lycett
Green (Chair),
author and journalist
Suzi Feay,
journalist and
author
Rodney Troubridge,
Daunt Books
Penny Vincenzi
(Chair), novelist
Geordie Greig,
Editor, Mail
on Sunday
2010
2009
© Trevor Leighton
© Caroline Forbes
2008
Cristina Odone,
journalist, novelist
and broadcaster
Support
for the Prize
Edward Hogan
Suzi Feay
Winner of The Desmond
Elliott Prize 2009
Judge of The Desmond
Elliott Prize 2009
“The Desmond
Elliott Prize is
fantastic in its
support of new
writing. For me personally, it
came at a crucial point in my
career. The Prize gave me the
time and the confidence to devote
myself fully to my second novel.
There are so many novels out
there, and the Prize brought to
my attention brilliant writers
like Anna Richards, Nathalie
Abi-Ezzi, and Anthony Quinn.
I always look out for the longlist.”
Edward Stourton
Chair of Judges, The
Desmond Elliott Prize 2011
“It is difficult
to imagine a
pleasanter duty
than reading and
discussing a collection of good
books by new writers - all the
novelists represented in our
shortlist deserve to succeed and
I felt proud to be involved with
a prize that should help them
get noticed.”
“Sadly, I never met
Desmond Elliott but
judging a prize imbued
with his style and sense
of fun, and above all with his passion
for authors, was the next best thing.
The Desmond Elliott is a very special
prize to be involved with and gives an
invaluable boost to gifted new writers
in these tough times.”
Elizabeth Buchan
Chair of Judges,
The Desmond Elliott Prize 2010
“I was deeply honoured
to be invited to judge the
Desmond Elliott Prize.
It is a prize which seeks
to look beyond the obvious and has
achieved its aim, year after year.
It was both a delight and a privilege
to be involved.”
Rodney Troubridge
Judge of The Desmond
Elliott Prize 2009
“I loved being a judge
for the Prize, partly
because there is nothing
better than discussing
books with your fellow judges, and also
I think the Prize helped our winning
author to go on and finish his second
novel, published earlier this year and
to some critical acclaim.”
Contacts
Prize submissions:
Emma Manderson
Administrator
The Desmond Elliott Charitable Trust
84 Godolphin Road
London W12 8JW
Tel: 020 8222 6580
Email: [email protected]
Media enquiries:
Katy Macmillan-Scott or Liz Sich
Four Colman Getty
The Communications Building
48 Leicester Square
London
WC2H 7FG
Tel: 0870 626 9000
DL (Katy): 020 3023 9076
DL (Liz): 020 3023 9040
Email: [email protected]
Email: [email protected]
“You have to be Machiavelli
and Elizabeth Arden rolled
into one in this business.”
Desmond Elliott
www.desmondelliottprize.org
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