|
|
|
|
|
|
Best First Novel Award Shortlist 2016
Following the annual lunch at which members meet to discuss the shortlist, the Authors’ Club is pleased to announce that the final six novels in contention for the 2016 award are as follows:
Jakob’s Colours by Lindsay Hawdon (Hodder)
The Last Pilot by Benjamin Johncock (Myriad Editions)
The Good Son by Paul McVeigh (Salt)
The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley (Bloomsbury Circus)
Belonging by Uma Sinha (Myriad Editions)
Rawblood by Catriona Ward (Weidenfeld)
The prize is for the debut novel of a British, Irish or UK-based author, first published in the UK, and there is no age limit. This is the 62nd year of the prize.
The winner will be announced at a prize party at the National Liberal Club on Tuesday 7 June. The final choice from the six shortlisted titles will be made by this year’s guest adjudicator, Anthony Quinn, winner of the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award in 2010 for his novel The Rescue Man.
Two small independent publishers – Salt and Myriad Editions – make up half the shortlist. Myriad Editions, with two titles, also published the winner of the BFNA 2011, Jonathan Kemp’s London Triptych.
The Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award was inaugurated in 1954 and past winners have included Brian Moore, Alan Sillitoe, Paul Bailey, Gilbert Adair, Nadeem Aslam, Diran Adebayo, Jackie Kay, Susan Fletcher, Nicola Monaghan, Laura Beatty, Anthony Quinn, Jonathan Kemp, Kevin Barry, IJ Kay/Ros Barber (joint), and Jack Wolf. Last year’s prize was awarded to Carys Bray. Recent guest adjudicators have included Joanne Harris, Amanda Craig, Philip Hensher, DJ Taylor, Salley Vickers, Isabel Wolff and Susie Boyt.
The winner will be announced and the award presented at a reception on 7 June.
|
|
|
Truth in Fiction
Wedneday, 4 May, 7pm, Lady Violet Room,
National Liberal Club, London SW1 2HE
Join us for a thought-provoking, fascinating and exciting evening of readings and discussions about truth in fiction, and about novels that leave us wondering how much is fact and how much is fiction.
Paul E. Hardisty’s debut thriller The Abrupt Physics of Dying, set in Yemen, was shortlisted for the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger, and was a Telegraph best thriller of 2015.
Edward Wilson is the critically acclaimed author of the Catesby series of spy thrillers that focus on espionage and the Cold War, including his latest,A Very British Ending. The Irish Independent says, ‘Edward Wilson seems poised to inherit the mantle of John le Carré as master of the British spy thriller’.
Yusuf Toropov’s debut thriller, Jihadi: A Love Story, questions the nature of terrorism and nationalism, good and evil, and asks some big questions that prompts us to reassess everything we thought we knew.
The evening will be chaired by Sunny Singh, whose latest novel Hotel Arcadia explores themes of surveillance, photography, ethics of journalism during the terrorist siege of a five star hotel.
Tickets £15, or £10 for Authors' Club/NLC members, and must be booked online:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/truth-in-fiction-tickets-22800328396
There will be no ticket sales on the door.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright © 2016 The Authors' Club, All rights reserved.