Home / News

News

The Desmond Elliott Prize 2010 Judges Announced

Tuesday, February 02, 2010

 www.desmondelliottprize.com

Best-selling author, literary editor and leading bookseller look forward to “the opportunity to seek out the best of emerging talent.”
 
The judges for the Desmond Elliott Prize 2010 were announced on Tuesday 2 February 2010. Acclaimed author and journalist Elizabeth Buchan will chair the panel of judges and is joined by William Skidelsky, Literary Editor of The Observer, and leading independent bookseller James Daunt, founder of Daunt Books.
 
Elizabeth Buchan, a former publisher, comments: “What a fabulous prize this is... in a typically far-sighted and generous gesture, Desmond Elliott has given us the opportunity to seek out the best of emerging talent and to pay it its due. Nurturing new writers is always necessary but, in financially uncertain times, it is vital.”  
 
The Desmond Elliott Prize was launched in 2007 as a biennial award for a first novel published in the UK. The inaugural Prize, won by Nikita Lalwani for her novel, Gifted, in June 2008 was so well received that the trustees were prompted to make it an annual award. The 2009 winner was Edward Hogan for his novel Blackmoor. Praised by The Independent on Sunday as a writer ‘who invites comparison with D H Lawrence’, Hogan is using the £10,000 prize money to support the writing of his second novel. On being awarded the Prize, he said: “Personally, I’m still stunned to have received the Desmond Elliott Prize. I’m so grateful to have my book recognised in this way – and I really hope I can use the boost to improve my work.  The legacy that Mr Elliott left means that the struggle to get to my desk has eased slightly. It means I can do more quality research on my second book, and hopefully make it better.”
 
The Prize was inaugurated 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 judges will look 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. Entries will be considered from all fiction genres. The 2009 shortlist reflected the diversity of new writing, with Anthony Quinn and Nathalie Abi-Ezzi in contention with Hogan.
 
This year’s longlist of ten books will be announced in late March, followed by the shortlist of three books in May. The winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize 2010 will be announced on Thursday 24 June at Fortnum & Mason, Piccadilly, London.
 
 
About the judges
 
Elizabeth Buchan (Chair) began her career as a blurb writer for Penguin Books. She later became a fiction editor at Random House but decided after a couple of years that she should do what she wished to do: write. Her novels include Daughters of the Storm, Light of the Moon, Consider the Lily and the bestselling Revenge of the Middle Aged Woman, which has sold all over the world and has been made into a television film for CBS. Her latest novel is Separate Beds, to be published in 2010, a story of a family’s renegotiation of their relationships after the credit crunch has hit them.
 
Her short stories have appeared in various magazines and have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and she reviews for the Sunday Times. She had also chaired the Betty Trask prize and been a judge for the Whitbread (now Costa) book awards.
 
 
William Skidelsky is books editor of the Observer. Before that he was deputy editor of Prospect magazine and, before that, literary editor of the New Statesman. Aside from books, he writes about sport and food and he is the author of a guide book, Gourmet London.
 
James Daunt opened Daunt Books on Marylebone High Street, London in 1990. He has subsequently opened a further four bookshops in central London. He remains very much a shop floor bookseller. James has also judged The Ondatjee Prize and The Whitbread First Novel Award. He is aged 46 and is married with two daughters.
 
 
- ends -
 
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 creation 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.
 
Notes to editors
  • The judges may be available for interview via Caroline Brown at Colman Getty
  • Photographs of the judges and the Prize logo and further information is 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
 
For further information please contact
Caroline Brown or Mark Hutchinson
at Colman Getty
T: 020 7631 2666


Other current news items
Site and contents © Desmond Elliott Prize 2009
web design london : pedalo limited