SHORTLIST FOR THE 2001 WHITBREAD NOVEL AWARD

JUDGES
Esther Freud Author
Mary Loudon Author
Tim O’Kelly One Tree Bookshop, Petersfield

The following shortlist of four books was selected from 106 entries.

The Siege by Helen Dunmore (Viking £16.99)
Leningrad, September 1941. German forces surround the city, imprisoning those who live there. The besieged people of Leningrad face shells, starvation, and the Russian Winter. Interweaving two love affairs in two generations, The Siege draws us deep into the Levin family’s struggle to stay alive during this terrible winter.
Helen Dunmore is the author of six previous, highly-acclaimed novels, including A Spell of Winter and Zennor in Darkness. She is also a prize-winning poet, children’s novelist and short story writer. She lives in Bristol with her family.
The judges: “An extraordinary story, told with great beauty and restraint, and a devastating account of war’s lasting damage. A testimony to the power of the novel simultaneously to move and to illuminate.”

Atonement by Ian McEwan (Jonathan Cape £16.99)
On the hottest day of the summer of 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis, sees her sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching her is childhood friend, Robbie Turner. By the end of that day, the lives of all three will have been changed for ever.
Born in 1948, the son of a Scots sergeant-major, Ian McEwan once described himself as “a very mediocre pupil” until he was seventeen, when he began to find English literature exciting. He has since published eight highly-acclaimed novels, including A Child in Time which won the 1987 Whitbread Novel Award, two collections of stories, and has also written several film scripts. The judges: “A hugely inspiring, richly veined novel of extraordinary breadth. Beautifully written, moving, and a book that makes you think, and think again.”

Oxygen by Andrew Miller (Sceptre £14.99)
It is the summer of 1997, the year of the comet. For four interconnected lives - Alec Valentine, his brother Larry, an actor in San Francisco, their gravely ill mother Alice, and Laszlo Lazar, a Hungarian exile - the moment has come to assess the turnings taken and the opportunities foregone, the achievements and the failures, the point of it all…
Andrew Miller was born in Bristol in 1960 and grew up in the West Country. He has lived in Spain, Japan, Ireland and France, but currently lives near Brighton. He is the author of two previous acclaimed novels, Ingenious Painand Casanova, which are currently being adapted for film.
The judges: “A beautifully assured, effortless piece of storytelling by a writer of exceptional talents, capable of moving seamlessly between two different worlds.”

Twelve Bar Blues by Patrick Neate (Viking £9.99)
White folk and black, slaves and slave owners, pimps and prostitutes, African chiefs and New Orleans jazz, three continents, two centuries and one song. Twelve Bar Blues is an epic tale of history and fate, love and friendship, roots and pilgrimage, jazz, magic and everything in-between.
Patrick Neate lives and works in London and writes extensively about black music for The Face and Q amongst others. He is a DJ as well as a writer, and previous author of Musungu Jim and the Great Chief Tuloko.
The judges: “A huge, sprawling helping of soul food, Twelve Bar Blues sparkles with life - it’s funny, poignant, magical and refreshing.”