We are delighted that Tom Benn has been shortlisted for the 2022 Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award, for his novel OXBLOOD.
Also shortlisted are Lucy Burns with Larger than an Orange, Maddie Mortimer with Maps of our Spectacular Bodies and Katherine Rundell with Super-Infinite.
The Sunday Times described the shortlisters as ‘four dazzling risk-takers’ and Tom Benn as ‘a master of Northern Noir’. Chair of Judges Andrew Holgate said: ‘Four very strong voices and four immensely powerful books. This is a terrific shortlist, one that more than lives up to the great traditions of this prize and its mission to find and spotlight distinctive new voices that will flourish in the future. I feel very confident about the way forward for all of these authors, and choosing between them for the winner is going to be extremely difficult.’
The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award is awarded annually for a work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry, to an author aged 18 – 35. Previous winners include Sally Rooney and Max Porter. The winner of the 2022 award and the £10,000 prize will be announced on 14th March.
David Peace called Tom Benn ‘one of the most powerful and urgent writers of our times’ and OXBLOOD, published by Bloomsbury in April 2022, was also longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize 2022. The paperback will be published in April 2023.
OXBLOOD by Tom Benn
Wythenshawe, South Manchester. 1985.
The Dodds family once ruled Manchester’s underworld; now the men are dead, leaving three generations of women trapped in a house haunted by violence, harbouring an unregistered baby.
Matriarch Nedra presides over the household, which bustles with activity as she prepares the welcome feast for her grandson Kelly’s return from prison.
Her grieving daughter-in-law Carol is visited by both the welcome intimate ghost of her murdered lover, and by Mac, an ageing criminal enforcer, a man who may just offer her a real and possible future.
And then there is Jan – the teenage tearaway running as fast as she can from her mother, her grandmother and her own unnamed baby.
Over the course of a few days, the Dodds women must each confront the true legacy of the men who have defined their lives, and seize the opportunity to break the cycle for good.
A blistering portrait of a family on fire, OXBLOOD lays bare the horror of violence, the exile of grief and the extraordinary power of love.
About Tom Benn
Photo: Benjamin Mathers
Tom Benn is an author, screenwriter and lecturer from Stockport, England. His first novel, THE DOLL PRINCESS (Cape), was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Portico Prize, longlisted for the CWA’s John Creasey Dagger, and was The Daily Mirror's Book of the Week. His other novels are CHAMBER MUSIC (Cape) and TROUBLE MAN (Cape). He won runner-up prize in the 2019 International Desperate Literature Prize for Short Fiction, and his creative nonfiction has appeared in The Paris Review Daily. He won the BFI’s iWrite scheme for emerging screenwriters. His first film, Real Gods Require Blood, premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, and was nominated for Best Short Film at the BFI London Film Festival.
Praise for OXBLOOD
‘This trio of strong female, working-class voices, each telling her own story, is an absolute triumph: complex, haunting and powerful, this is a blazing tale of complicity, shame, love and hope.’ – Laura Wilson, The Guardian
‘If I read a better novel than OXBLOOD in 2022, it’ll be a blinding year for fiction. Tom Benn, please take a bow. Everybody else, please take note.’ – Joseph Knox, author of TRUE CRIME STORY and SIRENS
‘One of the most powerful and urgent writers of our times.’ – David Peace
‘Brilliant’ – Denise Mina
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