13/11/2001

2001 Whitbread Biography Award Shortlist

SHORTLIST FOR THE 2001 Whitbread Biography Award

JUDGES
Mike Brookes-Sullivan Borders UK
Kathryn Hughes Biographer and Critic
Stella Tillyard Historian

The following shortlist of four books was selected from 84 entries.

A View of Delft by Anthony Bailey (Chatto and Windus £16.99)
A topical and highly original attempt to get at Vermeer’s life and personality, by setting him imaginatively in the context of Delft, its culture and its history. The result is a vivid portrait of the Protestant innkeeper’s son who died relatively young and left fewer than 40 pictures.
Anthony Bailey was born in Portsmouth and studied history at Oxford. He is the author of two studies of Rembrandt and a full-length life of Turner, and for many years was a writer for The New Yorker. He lives in Greenwich.
The judges: “Bailey’s great achievement is to construct a rich and fascinating portrait, not only of one of the most elusive painters of his time but also of the city that he lived in.”

Boswell’s Presumptuous Task by Adam Sisman (Hamish Hamilton £17.99)
The story of the eponymous task - Boswell’s legendary biography of Samuel Johnson - Sisman also traces the unlikely friendship between these two such different men, one of the most compelling pairings in the history of literature, and exposes the tensions that arose from Boswell’s decision to undertake a life of his friend and mentor.
Author of the acclaimed AJP Taylor: A Biography, Adam Sisman worked as a publisher for fifteen years before taking up writing. He lives near Bath, with his wife, the novelist Robyn Sisman, and their two children.
The judges: “A wonderful book that combines sturdy scholarship, intellectual sophistication and a passionate interest in what it means to be a devoted friend.”

Selkirk’s Island by Diana Souhami (Weidenfeld & Nicolson £14.99)
The extraordinary story of the real Robinson Crusoe, the man who inspired Daniel Defoe’s famous novel. the author draws on Selkirk’s own testimony, that of his rescuers and fellow crewmen, and of the two women who claimed to be his wife to reveal the facts behind the fantasy of the fictional Crusoe and vividly evoke the ordeal of solitary survival.
Diana Souhami is the author of many highly-acclaimed books including The Trials of Radclyffe Hall, the bestselling Mrs Keppel and Her Daughter, Gertrude and Alice and Greta and Cecil.
The judges: “Souhami puts the fruits of scholarly research to the service of a great adventure story and comes up with a stylish, brilliantly unusual read.”

Flaubert: A Life by Geoffrey Wall (Faber & Faber £25.00)
In the first major biography of Flaubert to be written for many years, the author recreates the life and times of a writer of immeasurable talent and influence, whose characters, novels and stories live on, and investigates why the author of Madame Bovary still exerts such a hold on the popular literary imagination.
Geoffrey Wall teaches French at the University of York. He also works as a translator, travel writer and literary biographer. His acclaimed translation of Madame Bovary was published in 1992.
The judges: “A picaresque, hugely enjoyable jaunt through 19th century French literary life. Wall’s Flaubert is irascible, impossible and deluded but ultimately compelling.”

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