Whitbread Book Awards Category Winners Announced
*Ali Smith scoops the Whitbread Novel Award for the accidental
*Outsider Tash Aw beats Rachel Zadok to take Whitbread First Novel Award for The Harmony Silk Factory
*Kate Thompson beats three-times Whitbread winner Geraldine McCaughrean to take the Whitbread Children’s Book Award
*Mother and daughter Joanna David and Emilia Fox join final judging panel for the 2005 Whitbread Book Awards
Whitbread Group PLC today announced the 2005 Whitbread Book Award winners in the Novel, First Novel, Biography, Poetry and Children’s Book categories.
Whitbread Group PLC created the Whitbread Book Awards in 1971 in order to celebrate the most enjoyable books of the year by writers based in the UK and Ireland. Since then, it has successfully developed into one of the foremost and most prestigious literary awards in the UK today.
The five successful authors who will now contest for the Whitbread Book of the Year are:
* Ali Smith who, after missing out on the Man Booker and Orange Prizes, finally triumphs with her first full-length novel, the accidental, in the Novel Award category
* University of East Anglia graduate, Tash Aw for The Harmony Silk Factory, who wins the First Novel Award
* Hilary Spurling claims the Biography Award with the second part of her masterful biography of Matisse, Matisse the Master, a work which took her 15 years to complete
* Christopher Logue with the fifth and penultimate instalment of his celebrated account of the Iliad, Cold Calls, in the Poetry category
* Kate Thompson with The New Policeman for the Children’s Book Award
Alan Parker, Chief Executive of Whitbread Group PLC, said: “Everyone at Whitbread is tremendously proud of the Whitbread Book Awards and what they’ve come to represent over the past 34 years. The Whitbread Book Awards have been, and are, unique in highlighting some of the best examples of British writing as well as some of the most enjoyable reads. This year’s winners are, as always, no exception to the rule.”
The five Whitbread Book Award winners, each of whom will receive £5,000, were selected from 476 entries, the highest total ever received in one year. The five books are now eligible for the ultimate prize - the 2005 Whitbread Book of the Year.
The winner will be announced at The Brewery in central London on Tuesday 24th January 2006 by a panel of judges chaired by the author and former Children’s Laureate Michael Morpurgo MBE.
Once again, members of the public can vote via the Whitbread Book Awards website - www.whitbread-bookawards.co.uk - for which of the five books they would select as Whitbread Book of the Year. Everyone who votes will be entered into a free prize draw to win a set of the five category winners. A chart showing the most hotly-tipped book according to the public vote will also be available on the website.
Since the introduction of the Whitbread Book of the Year award in 1985, it has been won seven times by a novel, three times by a first novel, four times by a biography, five times by a collection of poetry and once by a children’s book.
Final judging panel announced for the 2005 Whitbread Book Awards
Mother and daughter, actresses Joanna David and Emilia Fox, will join the final judging panel which selects the overall winner of the 2005 Whitbread Book of the Year.
The panel, chaired by the author and former Children’s Laureate Michael Morpurgo MBE, will comprise ITN journalist and newscaster Alastair Stewart; actress Joanna David and her daughter actress Emilia Fox; and five writers representing the five category judging panels - Philippa Gregory (Novel), Linda Newbery (Children’s Book Award), Ciaran Carson (Poetry), Margaret Drabble (Biography) and Arabella Weir (First Novel). The final judges will meet on Tuesday, 24th January 2006 to select the winner of the 2005 Whitbread Book of the Year which will be announced at a ceremony later that evening.
Former final judges include Hugh Grant, Ralph Fiennes, Jerry Hall, Ian Hislop, Jonathan Ross, Imogen Stubbs, Liza Tarbuck and Kirsty Young. Recent winners of the Whitbread Book of the Year include Mark Haddon, Claire Tomalin, Philip Pullman, Seamus Heaney and the late Ted Hughes. Last year, Andrea Levy took the title with her novel, Small Island, which has since gone on to become a major bestseller, selling over 600,000 copies since its publication in paperback.
For additional information please visit www.whitbread-bookawards.co.uk .
Full details of the shortlists follow.
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2005 Whitbread Book Awards Winners
Whitbread Novel Award the accidental Ali Smith
Whitbread First Novel Award The Harmony Silk Factory Tash Aw
Whitbread Biography Award Matisse The Master Hilary Spurling
Whitbread Poetry Award Cold Calls Christopher Logue
Whitbread Children’s Book Award The New Policeman Kate Thompson
Previous Winners of the Whitbread Book of the Year
2004 Small Island Andrea Levy Novel
2003 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Mark Haddon Novel
2002 Samuel Pepys:The Unequalled Self Claire Tomalin Biography
2001 The Amber Spyglass Philip Pullman Children’s Book
2000 English Passengers Matthew Kneale Novel
1999 Beowulf Seamus HeaneyPoetry
1998 Birthday Letters Ted Hughes Poetry
1997 Tales from Ovid Ted Hughes Poetry
1996 The Spirit Level Seamus Heaney Poetry
1995 Behind the Scenes at the Museum Kate Atkinson First Novel
1994 Felicia's Journey William Trevor Novel
1993 Theory of War Joan Brady Novel
1992 Swing Hammer Swing! Jeff Torrington First Novel
1991 A Life of Picasso John Richardson Biography
1990 Hopeful Monsters Nicholas Mosley Novel
1989 Coleridge: Early Visions Richard Holmes Biography
1988 The Comforts of Madness Paul Sayer First Novel
1987 Under the Eye of the Clock Christopher Nolan Biography
1986 An Artist of the Floating World Kazuo Ishiguro Novel
1985 Elegies Douglas Dunn Poetry
2005 Whitbread Novel Award
the accidental by Ali Smith
Hamish Hamilton
About the book:
the accidental, Ali Smith’s first full-length novel, is an outstanding portrayal of a 12-year-old girl. Astrid is spending the summer in a holiday home with her family in Norfolk. It’s a substandard house in a substandard town and she knows for sure nothing’s going to happen there all substandard summer. So she starts filming the dawn breaking each morning on her Sony digital camera. Essentially a modern-day reworking of Pasolini's 1968 film Theorem, this remarkable novel is at once dazzlingly bright and profoundly dark.
About the author:
Ali Smith was born in Inverness in 1962 and now lives in Cambridge. She is the author of Free Love, Like, Other Stories and Other Stories, Hotel World (shortlisted for both the Booker Prize and the Orange Prize in 2001) and The Whole Story and Other Stories. Ali Smith won The Arts Foundation 2001 Award for Short Story Writing and she reviews regularly for the Guardian, the Scotsman and the TLS.
What the Whitbread judges said:
“From the outset, the accidental stood out as a glorious work of fiction that inspired both laughter and sadness and that none of us could stop reading.”
Judges:
Alex Clark Freelance Journalist, Broadcaster and Critic
Philippa Gregory Author
John Humphrys Writer and Broadcaster
Shortlist, selected from a total of 112 entries:
Nick Hornby A Long Way Down Viking
Salman Rushdie Shalimar the Clown Jonathan Cape
Christopher Wilson The Ballad of Lee Cotton Little, Brown
Previous Whitbread Novel Award winners include:
Andrea Levy Small Island 2004
Mark Haddon The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time 2003
Michael Frayn Spies 2002
2005 Whitbread First Novel Award
The Harmony Silk Factory by Tash Aw
Harper Perennial
About the book:
Set in Malaysia in the 1930’s and 40’s, with the rumbling of the Second World War in the background and the Japanese about to invade, The Harmony Silk Factory is the story of four people: Johnny, an infamous Chinaman whose shop house, The Harmony Silk Factory, he uses as a front for his illegal businesses; Snow Soong, the beautiful daughter of one of the Kinta Valley’s most prominent families; Kunichika, a Japanese officer who loves Snow; and an Englishman, Peter Wormwood, who went to Malaysia like many English but never came back, who also loves Snow to the end of his life. A journey the four of them take into the jungle has a devastating effect on all of them, and brilliantly exposes the cultural tensions of the era.
About the author:
Tash Aw was born in Taipei to Malaysian Chinese parents and brought up in Malaysia. He was educated at a Catholic school in Kula Lumpur and later moved to England to read law at university. After leaving Cambridge, he moved to London and began to write short stories whilst working at a number of jobs (decorator, gardener, junior lawyer) before taking a place at the University of East Anglia, where he gained an MA in creative writing. Since publication, The Harmony Silk Factory has been translated into 13 languages. Citing his influences as Flaubert, Faulkner and Nabokov, Tash is currently writing his second novel.
What the Whitbread judges said:
“With writing of immense confidence and grace, Aw effortlessly draws the reader into a fascinating world evoked brilliantly by a gripping story.”
Judges:
Susanna Rustin Deputy Editor, Guardian Review
Robert Topping Topping & Company Booksellers
Arabella Weir Comedy Writer/Performer and Author
Shortlist, selected from a total of 80 entries:
Diana Evans 26a Chatto & Windus
Peter Hobbs The Short Day Dying Faber and Faber
Rachel Zadok Gem Squash Tokoloshe Pan Macmillan
Previous Whitbread First Novel Award winners include:
Susan Fletcher Eve Green 2004
DBC Pierre Vernon God Little 2003
Norman Lebrecht The Song of Names 2002
2005 Whitbread Biography Award
Matisse The Master by Hilary Spurling
Hamish Hamilton
About the book:
Fifty years after his death, Matisse the Master shows us the painter as he saw himself. With unprecedented and unrestricted access to his voluminous family correspondence, and other new material in private archives, Hilary Spurling documents a lifetime of desperation and self-doubt, exacerbated by Matisse’s attempts to counteract the violence and disruption of the twentieth century in paintings that seem now effortlessly serene, radiant and stable.
About the author:
Hilary Spurling is the author of The Unknown Matisse: The Early Years, 1869-1908. Her other biographies include Ivy: The Life of Ivy Compton-Burnett, Paul Scott: A Life, La Grande Thérèse: The Greatest Scandal of the Century and The Girl from The Fiction Department: A Portrait of Sonia Orwell. She is a regular book reviewer for The Daily Telegraph and New York Times.
What the Whitbread judges said:
“A masterpiece - one of the landmark biographies of the last few years which has already changed the history of art.”
Judges:
Margaret Drabble Novelist and Biographer
Frances Wilson Biographer and Critic
Jon Woolcott Non-Fiction Buying Manager, Ottakar’s
Shortlist, selected from a total of 114 entries:
Nigel Farndale Haw-Haw: The Tragedy of William and Margaret Joyce Macmillan
Richard Mabey Nature Cure Chatto & Windus
Alexander Masters Stuart: A Life Backwards Fourth Estate
Previous Whitbread Biography Award winners include:
John Guy My Heart is My Own: The Life of Mary Queen of Scots 2004
DJ Taylor Orwell: The Life 2003
Claire Tomalin Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self 2002
2005 Whitbread Poetry Award
Cold Calls by Christopher Logue
Faber and Faber
About the book:
This is the fifth and penultimate instalment of Christopher Logue’s celebrated account of the Iliad. Cold Calls continues from a point nine years after the Greeks have launched a thousand ships to capture Helen of Troy. The Trojans have driven the Greeks off the plain of Troy but the battles continue. Logue’s free blank verse elegantly transforms these well-loved, ancient stories into a modern epic.
About the author:
Christopher Logue was born in 1926. He served as a private in the Black Watch and spent sixteen months in an army prison. His publications include several volumes of poetry and a pornographic novel. He lives in London with his wife, the critic Rosemary Hill.
What the Whitbread judges said:
“A graphic, blood-soaked, bawdy adaptation of the Iliad. Modern references pepper the book and bring it bang up to date. We were all disappointed when it ended, and there can be no greater recommendation than that.”
Judges:
Ciaran Carson Professor of Poetry and Director of the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at Queen’s University, Belfast
Suzie Dooré Senior Editor, Hodder and Stoughton
Robert Potts Critic and Literary Journalist
Shortlist, selected from a total of 61 entries:
David Harsent Legion Faber and Faber
Richard Price Lucky Day Carcanet
Jane Yeh Marabou Carcanet
Previous Whitbread Poetry Award winners include:
Michael Symmons Roberts Corpus 2004
Don Paterson Landing Light 2003
Paul Farley The Ice Age 2002
2005 Whitbread Children’s Book Award
The New Policeman by Kate Thompson
The Bodley Head
About the book:
Everyone in Kinvara is conscious that time is flying past, faster and faster - to such an extent that when JJ asks his mother what she would like for her birthday, she asks for more time. When he sets out to buy his mother some time, he discovers the fate of a flute which will provide some clues to his problems. JJ makes the transition to Tir na n’Og, the land of eternal youth, where he finds that the fairy people are also having a problem with time and it falls to his lot to locate the leak between the two parallel worlds.
About the author:
Kate Thompson was born in Yorkshire in 1956. She has won the Bisto Book of the Year Award three times: for The Beguilers (2001), The Alchemist’s Apprentice (2002) and Annan Water (2005). She has trained racehorses in England and the USA, and travelled extensively in India, working and learning. Kinvara, a tiny village on the west coast of Ireland where Kate now lives, is the setting for The New Policeman, a book full of her passion for story and music. Kate recently completed an MA in Irish Traditional Music Performance at the University of Limerick.
What the Whitbread judges said:
" A captivating Irish tale, enthralling from the gripping beginning to the final surprising conclusion. Kate Thompson's seductive story about JJ's quest is full of myth, music and magic - a cracking good read!”
Judges:
Lizo Mzimba CBBC Newsround Presenter
Linda Newbery Author
Professor Gervase Phinn Author and Lecturer
Una Haran (Young Judge) CBBC Newsround, ‘Presspacker’
Calum Finlayson (Young Judge) CBBC Newsround, ‘Presspacker’
Shortlist, selected from a total of 109 entries:
Frank Cottrell Boyce Framed Macmillan
Geraldine McCaughrean The White Darkness Oxford University Press
Hilary McKay Permanent Rose Hodder Headline
Previous Whitbread Children’s Book Award winners include:
Geraldine McCaughrean Not the End of the World 2004
David Almond The Fire-Eaters 2003
Hilary McKay Saffy’s Angel 2002
Final Judging Panel 2005 Whitbread Book Of The Year
The Final Judging Panel will meet on Tuesday 24th January 2006 to decide the Whitbread Book of the Year which will be announced at a presentation ceremony later that evening. The nine judges are:
Michael Morpurgo MBE
Chair
Writer and former Children’s Laureate
Ciaran Carson
Professor of Poetry and Director of the Seamus
Heaney Centre for Poetry at Queen's University, Belfast
Poetry Award panel
Joanna David
Actress
Margaret Drabble
Novelist and biographer
Biography Award panel
Emilia Fox
Actress
Philippa Gregory
Author
Novel Award panel
Linda Newbery
Author
Children’s Book Award panel
Alastair Stewart
Newscaster (ITN)
Arabella Weir
Comedy writer/performer and author
First Novel Award panel
Notes for Editors:
1. To be eligible for the 2005 Awards, books must have been first published in the UK or Ireland between 1 November 2004 and 31 October 2005.
2. The total prize fund for the Whitbread Awards now stands at £50,000. The award winners from the five categories - Novel, First Novel, Biography, Poetry and Children’s Book - each receive £5,000.
3. The overall Whitbread Book of the Year is selected from the five category Award winners with the winner receiving a further £25,000. The winner will be announced at the awards ceremony at The Brewery, central London on 24 January 2006.
4. Photography of the judges, authors and book jackets are available from the Whitbread Book Awards website: www.whitbread-bookawards.co.uk. To access high resolution photography through the website, please visit PRESS OFFICE and then PHOTO LIBRARY LATEST and click on SECURE before entering the password ENJOY.
For further press information or to arrange an interview with any of the winning authors, please contact Amanda Johnson at Karen Earl Sponsorship on 0207 202
2837/07715 922 180 or [email protected].
About Whitbread PLC:
Whitbread PLC is the UK's leading hospitality company, managingmarket leading businesses in the budget hotels, restaurant and health & fitness sectors, including Premier Travel Inn, Brewers Fayre, Beefeater, Costa, T.G.I. Friday's and David Lloyd Leisure, and a strategic investment in Pizza Hut (UK).
Whitbread's success is due to the skill and professionalism of its 50,000 people who serve around 10 million customers each month at more than 2,200 outlets across the UK. Whitbread's strategy is to create value for our shareholders by focusing investment and growing in expanding sectors of the hospitality industry, primarily in the UK but also in selected international markets.
In the financial year to March 3, 2005, Whitbread generated pre-tax, pre-exceptional profit of £263.5m on sales of more than £2,111m. Founded in 1742, the company is listed on the London Stock Exchange (as WTB.L).
2005 Whitbread Book Awards:
Final Judging Panel Biographies
Michael Morpurgo MBE: Writer and former Children’s Laureate (Chairman)
Michael Morpurgo was appointed Children’s Laureate in May 2003 and held the post until May 2005. During his time as Children’s Laureate, Michael travelled all over the UK talking to children and telling his stories and encouraging them to tell theirs. He has written over 100 books including Why the Whales Came, which has been made into a major feature film, and My Friend Walter, filmed by Thames Television. He won the Whitbread Children’s Book Award in 1995 and has been shortlisted many times.
Michael and his wife, Clare, started the charity Farms for City Children in 1976 and help to run three farms around the country, in Gloucestershire, Pembrokeshire and North Devon. Each farm offers children and teachers from urban primary schools the chance to live and work in the countryside for a week, and gain hands-on experience.
Ciaran Carson: Writer (representing the Poetry Award panel)
Ciaran Carson was born in 1948 in Belfast, where he still lives. He is the author of nine collections of poems, including The Irish for No, Belfast Confetti, and The Twelfth of Never. In recent years he has written four prose books: Last Night’s Fun, a book about traditional music; The Star Factory, a memoir of Belfast; Fishing for Amber: A Long Story; and Shamrock Tea, a novel, which was longlisted for the Booker Prize. In October 2003 he was appointed Professor of Poetry and Director of the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s University, Belfast. His most recent work is The Midnight Court, a translation of the Irish classic text, ‘Cúirt an Mheán Oíche’, by Brian Merriman.
Joanna David: Actress
Joanna David was born in 1947, and has since forged a successful career in acting and broadcasting. Through a career of over 35 years, Joanna has featured in an extensive list of popular costume dramas, detective stories and contemporary series across the stage and small screen as well as starring in a number of high budget films and radio productions. Although Joanna is a very successful actress in her own right, she is also part of one of the UK’s most well-known families in showbusiness, having meet Edward Fox in 1971 and lived together ever since. Her daughter Emilia, also a successful actress, is also on this year’s Whitbread Book Awards final judging panel.
Joanna’s screen highlights include starring alongside John Thaw in Inspector Morse and more recently played Mrs Badger in the BBC’s 2005 production, Bleak House.
Margaret Drabble: Novelist and biographer (representing the Biography Award panel)
Margaret Drabble was born in Sheffield in 1939. After a brief career as an actress with the Royal Shakespeare Company, Margaret became a full time writer and has published sixteen novels, the most recent of which is The Red Queen (Penguin, 2005). She has also published various works of non-fiction, including biographies of novelists Arnold Bennett (1974) and Angus Wilson (1995), and edited the Fifth edition of the Oxford Companion to English Literature (1985) of which a fully revised version (Sixth edition) appeared in September 2000. She is married to biographer Michael Holroyd.
Emilia Fox: Actress
Emilia read English at Oxford University before pursuing an acting career. She has countless film and TV credits to her name including The Pianist, Randall & Hopkirk Deceased, David Copperfield and many others. Some of Emilia's theatre credits include Coriolanus and Richard II at the Almeida Theatre, and The Cherry Orchard at the RSC and Albery Theatre. Recently, Emilia has been seen alongside Maggie Smith, Kristen Scott Thomas and Rowan Atkinson in the feature film, Keeping Mum. Emilia is currently filming the next series of Silent Witness for the BBC and also stars in Miss Marple: The Moving Finger for Granada.
Philippa Gregory: Author (representing the Novel Award panel)
Philippa Gregory is a full time writer. Her many writing credits include the bestselling Lacey trilogy - Wideacre, The Favoured Child and Meridon - and novels The Wise Woman, The Queen’s Fool and The Virgin’s Lover. A Respectable Trade was adapted for a highly acclaimed BBC television production, as was The Other Boleyn Girl, in a revolutionary new method of filming historical drama - Philippa went on to win the Parker Romantic Novel of the Year award in 2002 for this novel. The film option has now been bought by Miramax.
Linda Newbery: Author (representing the Children’s Book Award panel)
Linda Newbery writes fiction for young readers of all ages. Her young adult novels, The Shell House and Sisterland, were both shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. Her books for younger readers include At the Firefly Gate, Lost Boy and Polly’s March. Linda also publishes short stories and poems. Formerly an English teacher, she now tutors writing courses for children, teenagers and adults.
Alastair Stewart: ITN Newscaster
Alastair currently presents “Live with Alastair Stewart”, the daily news and interview programme on the ITV News Channel, and ITV London’s flagship news and features programme “London Tonight. He has also provided the commentary for many of ITN’s other special programmes on the ITV network including the State Openings of Parliament, numerous by-elections, State Visits and for the Royal Weddings of the Prince and Princess of Wales and Duke and Duchess of York. Alastair is involved with a large number of charities and voluntary organisations.
Arabella Weir: Comedy writer/performer and author (representing First Novel Award panel)
Arabella Weir is an actress, author and presenter. She is best known as one of the stars of The Fast Show Team. Her numerous TV credits include: Grumpy Old Women, Alexei Sayle’s Stuff, Harry Enfield and Chums and Randall and Hopkirk Deceased. Arabella’s film credits include Honest Decent and True and the British hit Shooting Fish. Arabella's first two novels Does My Bum Look Big In This? and Onwards and Upwards (published by Hodder and Stoughton and Penguin respectively) were both international best sellers. The film rights for her new novel Stupid Cupid (published April 2002) have been bought by Renaissance films for whom she is currently writing the screenplay. Arabella is also the Ambassador for the National Council of One Parent Families. |
