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THE DESMOND ELLIOTT PRIZE 2009 SHORTLIST ANNOUNCED

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

First novelists go back to their roots

The shortlist for the Desmond Elliott Prize 2009, the award for a first novel published in the UK, is announced today, Tuesday 26 May 2009. The line-up features three outstanding first novels described by the judges as “three haunting books, all gripping in different ways.” Edward Hogan, Nathalie Abi-Ezzi and Anthony Quinn from Derby, Lebanon and Liverpool respectively, all use their homelands as the backdrop for their novels.

The three novels shortlisted for The Desmond Elliott Prize 2009 are as follows:

• 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 D H Lawrence – but that would be lazy. This novel … has confidence, mystery and an entrancing sense of itself.’ The Independent on Sunday

• 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.’ The Guardian

• The Rescue Man by Anthony Quinn (Jonathan Cape)

‘Ambitiously conceived...perfect pitch when it comes to the prose of each period' The Observer

 

Candida Lycett Green, on behalf of the judges, comments:

“We have been both entertained and inspired by the quality of writing amongst the contenders for this year’s shortlist and it was very difficult to decide on a final three. The result is a shortlist of three haunting books, all gripping in different ways while dealing with the complications of love and life in extremis. Together they are a celebration of new writing of which Desmond Elliott would be proud.”

The Desmond Elliott Prize 2009 panel of judges is chaired by Candida Lycett Green who is joined by former Literary Editor of The Independent on Sunday, Suzi Feay, and Rodney Troubridge of Waterstone’s.

William Hill bookmakers gave the following odds on this year’s shortlist:

Blackmoor by Edward Hogan (Simon & Schuster) – 5/4
A Girl Made of Dust by Nathalie Abi-Ezzi (Fourth Estate) – 7/4
The Rescue Man by Anthony Quinn (Jonathan Cape) – 2/1

William Hill spokesman Graham Sharpe commented, “There is a well-known horse racing adage which says 'always back the outsider in a three horse race'. This is one of the most competitive three horse literary races I can recall, and it is impossible to rule any one of the three out as a potential winner. Each has its own very worthy merits and I don't envy the judges their task of selecting a winner from what looks to be a genuine three-way photo finish.”

When judging the Prize, the judges are looking for a novel of depth and breadth with a compelling narrative. The work should be vividly written and confidently realised and should contain original and arresting characters. Books from all fiction genres have been considered.

The inaugural prize was won by Nikita Lalwani in 2008 for her novel, Gifted. The novel enjoyed great critical and popular success and went on to be named as one of The Observer’s Books of the Year.

The Prize was established in honour of publisher and literary agent Desmond Elliott, one of the most charismatic and successful men in this field, who died in August 2003. He stipulated that his estate should be invested in a charitable trust that would fund a literary award “to enrich the careers of new writers”. Worth £10,000 to the winner, the prize is intended to support new writers and to celebrate their fiction.

The winner of the 2009 Desmond Elliott Prize will be announced on Wednesday 24 June at Fortnum & Mason, Desmond’s ‘local grocer’, in London.

-ends-

Notes to editors

• The Judges of the Desmond Elliott Prize are available for interview. Please contact Colman Getty
• The shortlisted authors may be available for interview. Please contact Colman Getty
• Images of the shortlisted books, judges and the Prize logo are available from Colman Getty
• The Desmond Elliott Charitable Trust is a registered charity. It is chaired by Dallas Manderson, Group Sales Director of the Orion Publishing Group. He is joined by Christine Berry, a partner in the charities group at Taylor Vinters, a Cambridge-based law firm, and Liz Thomson, Editor of BookBrunch. Both Dallas and Christine worked with Desmond Elliott at Arlington Books
• The Desmond Elliott website includes information about the prize and the books, with regular news updates - www.desmondelliottprize.com

For further information please contact
Caroline Brown or Mark Hutchinson
at Colman Getty
T: 020 7631 2666
E: caroline@colmangetty.co.uk

 

The Desmond Elliott Prize 2009 Shortlist

A Girl Made of Dust by Nathalie Abi-Ezzi (Fourth Estate)
Ten-year-old Ruba lives in a village outside Beirut. From her home she can see buildings shimmering on the horizon and the sea stretched out beside them. She can also hear the rumble of shelling – this is Lebanon in the 1980s and civil war is tearing the country apart.

Ruba, however, has her own worries. Her father hardly ever speaks and spends most of the day sitting in an armchair, avoiding work and family. Her older brother Naji is beginning to spend time with older boys – and some of them have guns. When Ruba uncovers her father’s secret, she starts a journey that takes her from childhood to the beginning of adulthood. As Israeli troops invade and danger comes ever closer, she realises that she may not be able to keep her family safe.

Natalie Abi-Ezzi was born in the Metn region of Lebanon in 1972. She and her family moved to England in 1983 when Israel invaded Lebanon. She won the Radio 4 Dotdotdot short story competition in 2001. She is the author of The Double in the Fiction of R L Stevenson, Wilkie Collins and Daphne du Maurier (2003) and the co-editor of various other books. She lives in Kent with her partner and their baby daughter.

‘Captivating. A subtle, pertinent depiction of civilian life in the midst of bewildering conflict.’ The Guardian

Blackmoor by Edward Hogan (Simon & Schuster)
“You said once that Blackmoor killed Mum.”
“I suppose you don’t think that a place can kill a person,” says George.
Vincent shrugs. “I just want to know how.”
“Slowly, that’s how.”

Bird-watching teenager Vincent Cartwright lives out a bullied, awkward existence not far from the site of Blackmoor, a mysterious, vanished Derbyshire village. His mother Beth, half-blind and unknowable, and her life and death in that same village has always been a dark family secret, but as Vincent comes of age he begins to search for the truth.

Edward Hogan was born in Derby in 1980. He is a graduate of the MA in creative writing course at the University of East Anglia and a recipient of the David Higham Award in 2003. Blackmoor was on the shortlist for the 2008 Dylan Thomas Prize. He is shortlisted for the 2009 Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. A teacher, he lives in London.

‘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 D H Lawrence – but that would be lazy. This novel … has confidence, mystery and an entrancing sense of itself.’ The Independent on Sunday

The Rescue Man by Anthony Quinn (Jonathan Cape)
Summer 1939. Historian Tom Baines is at work on a study of Liverpool’s architectural past. If war should come, will the buildings and streets that he documents survive? Then his faltering project gets a boost when a photographer, Richard Tanqueray, and his wife Bella befriend him and together they work against the clock of a rapidly contracting peacetime.

A further preoccupation takes hold when he begins to read the journals of a brilliant young Victorian architect, Peter Eames, who briefly flourished in Liverpool in the 1860s. Through him, Baines comes to a fuller understanding of the nature of genius, but also the mysterious workings of the human heart. Eames’s own legacy will have unexpected reverberations seventy years later when war comes and Baines joins a Heavy Rescue team, retrieving the wounded from bomb-damaged buildings. With the ordinary rules of life suspended and mortal danger ever-present, he finds his courage tested – and his conscience troubled as an adulterous lover.

Anthony Quinn was born in Liverpool in 1964. Since moving to London in 1986 he has written about film and books for a number of newspapers and magazines, including The Independent, The Telegraph, New York Times and The Mail on Sunday. For three years he was arts editor of Harpers & Queen. Since 1998 he has been film critic for The Independent. In 2006 he was one of the judges of the Man Booker Prize. He is currently wine correspondent for Esquire magazine.

‘Ambitiously conceived...perfect pitch when it comes to the prose of each period'
The Observer

About the Judges

Candida Lycett Green (Chair) is the author of sixteen books including English Cottages, Goodbye London, The Perfect English House, Over the Hills and Far away and The Dangerous Edge of Things. Her television documentaries include “The Englishwoman and the Horse” and “The Front Garden”. She has also edited and introduced her father John Betjeman’s letters and prose in three volumes, to critical acclaim. She was a commissioner of English Heritage for nine years, is a member of the Performing Rights Society through her song-writing lyrics and has been a Contributing Editor to Vogue since 1987. She was part of the original team who started Private Eye and has written a regular column called Unwrecked England for The Oldie since 1992.

Suzi Feay is a journalist, broadcaster and critic specialising in books, theatre and the arts. She has judged the Whitbread Novel Prize, the Impac Prize, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial prize and the Orange New Writers Prize, and was chair of judges for the National Poetry Prize in 2002 and the John Llewellyn Rhys prize in 2007. She was the Literary Editor of the Independent on Sunday for twelve and a half years.

Rodney Troubridge began his life as a bookseller eighteen years ago with the chain Dillons in a long-defunct branch in Kensington High Street. Dillons turned into Waterstone's and, aside from a brief spell at the Pan Bookshop, he has stayed with the chain and now works at their head office in marketing. Apart from reading, his leisure interests include walking in overseas countries and classical music. He usually reads about ten books a month and is in the fortunate position of receiving proofs of forthcoming books from publishers.

About Desmond Elliott

Desmond Elliott’s life reads like a page-turning rags-to-riches story. From humble beginnings in an Irish orphanage he came to England in 1947 at the age of 16, with just £2 in his pocket, to start his publishing career at Macmillan. After a colourful career in-house, Desmond set up as an agent and subsequently went on to establish his own publishing company, Arlington Books, in 1960.

This dedication, coupled with creative business sense, was key to the building up of a list of hugely successful blockbuster novelists: Jilly Cooper, Leslie Thomas and Penny Vincenzi, to name but a few. Respected and loved by his authors, in the words of Candida Lycett Green, Desmond was simply “magic”.

Charismatic, witty, and waspish, Elliott lived his life with verve. He drank only champagne, always crossed the Atlantic on Concorde and used Fortnum & Mason as his local shop. His office was in Mayfair and he had homes in London’s St. James’s and New York’s Park Avenue. Desmond Elliott died in August 2003 at the age of 73.

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