We are thrilled that Graeme Armstrong’s THE YOUNG TEAM has been shortlisted for the Betty Trask Prize & Awards for a debut novel by a writer under 35. Judge Vaseem Khan commended the shortlisted novels for being ‘measured and precise’, ‘erudite and linguistically nimble’, ‘quietly powerful’, and ‘a narrative whose power lasts long after the reading stops’. Also shortlisted are Bad Love by Maame Blue, The Last Good Man by Thomas McMullan, The Liar’s Dictionary by Eley Williams, The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave and The Water House by Nneoma Ike-Njoku.
The Betty Trask Prize and Awards, awarded by the Society of Authors, were founded after Betty Trask left a bequest to the Society of Authors in 1983 to fund prizes for first novels written by authors under the age of 35 in a traditional or romantic, but not experimental, style. The total prize fund is £26,200. Past winners include Zadie Smith, David Szalay, Hari Kunzru and Sarah Waters.
The winners will be announced online on Wednesday 9th June, in an online ceremony presented by novelist Joanne Harris.
THE YOUNG TEAM was published in 2020 by Picador and became a Times top 10 bestseller. The paperback was published in April 2021.
2005. Glasgow is named Europe’s Murder Capital, driven by a violent territorial gang and knife culture. In the housing schemes of adjacent Lanarkshire, Scotland’s former industrial heartland, wee boys become postcode warriors.
2004. Azzy Williams joins the Young Team [YTP]. A brutal gang conflict with their deadly rivals, the Young Toi [YTB] begins.
2012. Azzy dreams of another life. He faces his toughest fight of all – the fight for a different future.
Expect Buckfast. Expect bravado. Expect street philosophy. Expect rave culture. Expect anxiety. Expect addiction. Expect a serious facial injury every six hours. Expect murder.
Hope for a way out.
Inspired by the experiences of its author, Graeme Armstrong, THE YOUNG TEAM is an energetic novel, full of the loyalty, laughs, mischief, boredom, violence and threat of life on these streets. It looks beyond the tabloid stereotypes to tell a powerful story about the realities of life for young people in Britain today.
‘Raw and lyrical . . . written in a voice that recalls Irvine Welsh and Alan Warner – dialect that fizzes off the page.’ – The Observer
‘Graeme Armstrong's debut novel is an instant Scottish classic.’ – The Skinny
‘Vivid, dynamic and sharp as a whip.’ – Janice Galloway, author of The Trick is to Keep Breathing
‘[A] gripping debut novel . . . [Armstrong] is quite a phenomenon . . . one of the most admired young voices in British fiction.’ – Mike Wade, The Times
Photo: Robin Farquhar-Thomson
Graeme Armstrong is a Scottish writer from Airdrie. His teenage years were spent within North Lanarkshire’s gang culture. He was inspired to study English Literature after reading Irvine Welsh’s TRAINSPOTTING at just sixteen. Alongside overcoming his own struggles with drug addiction, alcohol abuse and violence, he defied expectation to read English as an undergraduate at the University of Stirling; where, after graduating with honours, he returned to study a Masters’ in Creative Writing.
He regularly volunteers within the community visiting prisons and schools, giving talks on his experiences of gang-culture and substance abuse. He promotes a message of anti-violence and abstinence-based recovery.
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