Benjamin Myers
was
named winner of the inaugural Gordon Burn Prize for his book Pig Iron
(Bluemoose Books) at a special event at Durham Book Festival last night
Saturday 19th October. Durham-born Myers will receive a £5,000 award and
the opportunity to undertake a three-month writing retreat at Burn’s
cottage in Berwickshire.
There was strong competition for the award this year, with an impressive shortlist of unusual, challenging work.
However, the judging panel, comprising novelist David Peace, journalist
Deborah Orr, and broadcaster and author Mark Lawson, picked Myers as
the author who best represented the fearless, interrogative spirit of
Burn’s writing.
Judge Deborah Orr said: “In Pig Iron, Benjamin Myers’s most
recent novel, I think we have alighted on a work that captures the
spirit of the Gordon Burn Prize perfectly. Which is good. This being the
inaugural award, it was very important for us to start as we mean to go
on.
In Pig Iron, Myers’ protagonist, the traveller, John-John, tries
to escape the brutal legacy of his bare-knuckle fighting father by
abandoning the travelling way of life. His new job as an ice cream man
and settled life on the edge of a Northern town are meant to offer him
freedom. Instead he finds prejudice, parole officers and local gangs.
The Gordon Burn Prize, run in partnership by New Writing North, Faber
and Faber, and the Gordon Burn Trust, was conceived to pay tribute to
the literary legacy of the late author. An incisive, undaunted writer,
Newcastle-born Burn was a literary polymath, writing widely and well on a
range of subjects from George Best to Peter Sutcliffe. The Gordon Burn
Prize seeks to recognise writers whose work follows in his footsteps:
authors whose novels enter history to interrogate the past, and
non-fiction writers brave enough to recast characters to create a new
and vivid reality.
For more information about Benjamin Myers, please visit www.benmyers.com
Source: New Writing North Press Release
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