2011 Winners
Second Prize
Lindsay Stanberry–Flynn: Unravelling
First Prize
Christine Donovan: Jump Derry
Third Prize
Sarah James: Into the Yell
First Prize
Christine Donovan: Jump Derry
This is a contemporary novel set in Derry, Northern Ireland. It is an honest, moving exploration of teenage love, the legacy of the Troubles and freerunning. The voice is totally absorbing, succeeding in making fiction out of ordinary events. The girls’ self-doubting thoughts, and her relationships with parents, boyfriend and friends are beautifully realised and Christine Donovan’s ear for dialect is faultless. The judges did feel that there were some inconsistencies, and the use of bad language was unnecessarily prominent, but they decided that these were outweighed by its originality and sense of reality.
Second Prize
Lindsay Stanberry–Flynn: Unravelling
A well-written novel, spanning three generations, that deals with family life and the destructive force of love. The judges were impressed by the striking cover and many of them found the novel to be enjoyable and entertaining. The author’s grasp of the complexity of relationships between mothers and daughters make the novel a worthwhile read.
Third Prize
Sarah James: Into the Yell
A very professionally presented poetry collection. The poems have wonderfully enticing titles, like “The Inuit Who Couldn’t Give Up Her Heels,” and “The Bridesmaids of Port-au-Prince” and they hold up a mirror to twenty-first century life, surprising and delighting the reader with unexpected turns, mingling the ordinary with the extraordinary.
The Judges' Special Award
Johnny McKeagney: In the Ould Ago
An astonishingly detailed study of old Irish folklore, clearly a labour of love that must have taken many years to complete. It is a beautifully presented coffee-table book with an array of fascinating details and meticulous, hand-drawn illustrations. It is a unique look at the history of everyday rural life, a world that needs to be captured before it vanishes completely from our memories.
The 2011 Shortlist
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Panos Ioannides: Gregory and Other Stories
A beautifully presented collection of short stories by an avant-garde writer from Cyprus. He writes in deceptively simple prose, which penetrates beyond the obvious to inner truths that leave the reader with much to think about. The title story, “Gregory” is particularly powerful, told from the point of view of a group of young soldiers who have been ordered to take part in a firing squad.
Michael Richardson: Careless Talk
A very well-written novel set just after the second world war, told from the point of view of a thirteen-year-old boy who has just started at an Art School. The ability of Michael Richardson to evoke the period so convincingly is extremely impressive. The reader suffers with the protagonist as he negotiates the excruciating embarrassments of adolescence, but then cheers at the endearing way in which he manages to bounce back. It is warm, funny and real.
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Christopher Smith: Why Don’t you Fly: Backdoor to Beijing – by bicycle
A travel book based on the author’s experiences as he cycled from Worcestershire to Beijing, passing through places as diverse as Europe, Iran and India. The rich details about landscape, food and the people the author met on his journey give a penetrating insight into lives and worlds that are unfamiliar to most of us. It is amusing, extremely well-written and very readable. This book could well have been awarded a prize, but the judges felt that there were some problems with the presentation of the text and maps that detracted from the quality of the contents. The smallness of the text made the reading challenging.
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Andrew Sharp: The Ghosts of Eden
A moving, lyrical novel set in Africa, which explores childhood loss and atonement. Andrew Sharp writes with great authority on the dilemmas of Europeans who offer their support to African countries and it is clear that he has much personal knowledge of this world. The judges felt that the sections set in the past, from the child’s viewpoint, are particularly powerful and perceptive. It is a mature, intelligent, satisfying read.
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The 2011 Longlist
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Gillian Andrews: Valhai
An exciting, imaginative young adults’ novel set in another galaxy, featuring three argumentative teenagers who rebel against the age-old order of things and an intelligent lake that can communicate. This was a novel that might have been more successful, but was marred by punctuation problems, although Andrews says that the errors have now been corrected.
Billy Bob Button: Felicity Brady and the Wizards Bookshop
A door stopper of a Children’s book with magic and adventure. Harry Potter readers would love this.
Joanna Czechowska: The Black Madonna of Derby
A novel about three generations of an immigrant Polish family, exploring the clash of cultures between generations, contrasting the world of London in the sixties with the grim life in the Soviet Union.
Bobbie Darbyshire: Love, Revenge and Buttered Scones
A well-plotted comic novel, full of surprises, about a romantic novelist, a bizarre Scottish family and several extraordinary coincidences.
Margaret Gill: The Quetzal Skull
An exciting and mystical novel for young adults about an unassuming teenager who possesses a narwhal tusk that takes him to the rainforests of Costa Rica and confrontation with a drug lord.
Dianne Gray: The Everything Theory
A novel for young adults using archeology and theories about the past and future as a background to a rip-roaring adventure across the world.
Jill Hopkins: Nidae's Promise
A children’s novel following the adventures of a swallow making an epic journey in search of an island where he can find life-giving berries to save the life of a young boy
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Fiona Ingram: The Secret of the Sacred Scarab
An action-packed children’s novel set in Egypt, featuring mysterious happenings, an intrepid granny and a sinister plot to gain absolute power.
Lindsey Mackie: ASO
A science fiction novel set in 2050 in a post apocalyptic world of limited resources, where children are taken away from their parents and brought up in Wales by special carers and the elderly are sent as far away as possible in the opposite direction.
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Gitta Ogg: The Uncharted Voyage: A Wartime Saga
A memoir of a young Jewish girl who was forced to flee with her family from Czechoslovakia in a series of complex moves across the changing map of Europe of the 1930s before finally arriving in England.