THE LAST PILOT WINS THE AUTHORS CLUB BEST FIRST NOVEL AWARD

Benjamin Johncock’s compelling debut THE LAST PILOT has won The Authors' Club Best First Novel Award. The prize is for the debut novel of a British, Irish or UK-based author, first published in the UK. This is the 62nd year of the prize, and  past winners include Jack Wolf, Ros Barber and Carys Bray. 

Anthony Quinn, head judge and a former winner of the prize for The Rescue Man (Vintage) in 2009, said: “The Last Pilot is a memorable achievement, and a hugely deserving winner of this prize.” He further commended the novel for “its disciplined craftsmanship, its immersion in an historical era, and its profound engagement with human loss”.

THE LAST PILOT was published in July 2015 both in the UK (Myriad Books) and in the US (Picador), assembling an enthusiastic following with a rave review in The Washington Post, who say ‘the effect is supercharged Hemingway at 70,000 feet’; People magazine call it ‘ingeniously plotted, deftly written and engrossing,’ and Jane Ciabattari from BBC Culture says ‘Johncock is superb at crafting suspenseful scenes’. Mail on Sunday also praised THE LAST PILOT, ‘a remarkably accomplished debut'. It has been selected as Amazon’s Best Book of July 2015, shortlisted for the East Anglian Book Awards 2015, chosen as a Barnes & Noble’s 2015 Discover Great New Writers Pick and one of SJ Watson’s Best Summer Reads for The Independent. There's a full list of his many and incredible reviews on Ben's blog. The paperback was published in the US on 3rd May 2016.

Early October, 1947, Jim Harrison is a test pilot in the United States Air Force, flying flimsy aircraft high above the Mojave desert. When a terrible tragedy befalls his young family, Harrison's life grinds to a halt - so when he's offered a ticket to the moon, he takes it, and joins NASA's new training programme. Set against the backdrop of one of the most emotionally-charged periods in modern history, THE LAST PILOT is a mesmerising story of loss and finding courage in the face of it.

Benjamin Johncock was born in England in 1978. His short stories have been published by The Fiction Desk and The Junket. He is the recipient of an Arts Council England grant and the American Literary Merit Award, and is a winner of Comma Press's National Short Story Day competition. He also writes for the Guardian. He lives in Norwich, England, with his wife, his daughter, and his son.

Praise for THE LAST PILOT

‘The dense layering of real events, seriously technical language and sustained US vernacular makes for a big, muscular novel, but this is tenderly undercut by the quite different theme of a marriage and a family under unbearable stress... A cowboy in a silver suit he may be, but Jim Harrison’s descent into hell is convincing and moving.’ – Jane Housham, Guardian

‘Jim’s story is fascinating, and the author writes with a strong ear for dialogue, which rattles the pages with intensity. A marvellous, emotionally powerful novel.’ – Publishers Weekly

‘Benjamin Johncock has written one of the most American novels of the year … With remarkable accuracy, capturing the emotional weight of a time in history … The story is well paced and chock full of an array of inspirational characters … exuberant life beaming from the gorgeous prose. Johncock follows in the footsteps of the impressive list of writers that have been capable of creating lifelike dialogue by eliminating quotation marks and a large amount of tags in what is often pages of back forth between its characters. … reminiscent of the great Cormac McCarthy … The exposition is packed with detail, word choices and sentence structures that add up to equal a distinct and unique new voice in fiction … shows the careful and precise guidance of the authorial voice that can be trusted fully and wholeheartedly. Johncock writes paragraphs that are often only seen by master craftsman with many books already to their name … This debut novel is undoubtedly one of the most authentic pieces of fiction set in America in years.’ – Steven Petite, The Huffington Post

Visit Benjamin’s website and follow him on Twitter.

Jack Urwin’s MAN UP published today by Icon Books

Out from Icon Books today is Jack Urwin’s smart, funny and friendly book on masculinity, MAN UP. You can read an extract from the book about the events which prompted Jack to write about masculinity in The Telegraph.

Urwin’s article in VICE in 2014 – A Stiff Upper Lip is Killing British Men – went viral on publication and was praised by Irvine Welsh as ‘fabulous’, and by feminist journalist and author Laurie Penny as 'the brilliant, personal, not-actually-sexist writing by millennials about masculinity and politics that the world has been waiting for'.

MAN UP explores why masculinity – for all of its positive achievements – is currently in crisis, and what it means to be a man now. There’s no doubt about that crisis, either: suicide is currently the main cause of death among men between the ages of 18-49 in the UK, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Inspired in part by his own father’s premature death when Jack was nine, and his subsequent struggles with depression in his teens and early twenties - to which his inability to communicate emotionally was a major contributing factor - MAN UP expands on Urwin’s personal experiences, and delves further into the historical causes of toxic male behaviour in both biological and sociological contexts.

In the book, Jack traces crises of masculinity from our grandfathers’ inability to verbalise the horrors of war and the decline of the working class in the latter part of the 20th century, to the mob mentality displayed on the football terraces, and the disturbing rise of mental health problems among men today. He also looks at the wider impact wrought by reinforcement of such rigid definitions of masculinity, harming not only heterosexual men but also the women and LGBT people around them. 

MAN UP is the start of an essential conversation for men, exploring why we have perpetuated various myths of masculinity – and how we can challenge it, and change it.

The book will launch tomorrow in an event at Waterstone’s Piccadilly. Jack will be at Cheltenham Science Festival on the 8th and 9th June discussing The Myth of Masculinity and Bringing Up Boys. Jack was interviewed in the Evening Standard about What It Means to be a Man in 2016, and also wrote five tips for men for AskMen. He was featured discussing masculinity on BBC Woman’s Hour and his book has already featured in several pieces in The Telegraph.

Jack Urwin was born in Loughborough in 1992 and moved to London at 18 to study journalism, a degree which would do its best to turn him off becoming a journalist. He spent several years working as a music publicist on campaigns for a variety of major and independent labels, leading to Enrique Iglesias labelling him — quite unfairly, he feels — a ‘drill sergeant'. 

Jack contributes to a number of music publications, humour sites and magazines including McSweeney's and VICE. His work has covered a range of issues such as politics, mental health and gender and has drawn praise from the likes of Irvine Welsh. He's spoken at UCL and been interviewed on US radio by Judith Regan, although unlike OJ Simpson didn't confess to any murders in the process.

Follow Jack on Twitter.

THE INVISIBLE WOMAN out in paperback tomorrow

Helen Walmsley-Johnson’s THE INVISIBLE WOMAN is published in paperback in the UK tomorrow by Icon Books.

THE INVISIBLE WOMAN is a funny, frank and essential book on ageing. Helen discusses what it is to reach your fifties, look both backwards and forwards, and how to continue pursuing adventures in later life even when it seems your brain and body are against you.

To give you a flavour of the book, here are some of our favourite quotes:

“The 'age 55 to 64' box is the God's waiting room of my form-filling life.”

“The older I become the more I feel deeply and symbiotically attached to my pyjamas.”

“Polyester is to menopausal women as garlic is to a vampire.”

“Ageism has sexism running through the middle like a stick of Blackpool rock.”

“As a middle-aged person I steadfastly refuse to be rushed into anything.”

“Keeping your mind open and curious is one of the most vital things you will ever do.”

Helen has written a variety of opinion pieces for the Guardian, is a regular contributor to Standard Issue, and has spoken out against ageism on Woman's Hour and BBC radio. Recently, she has made headlines talking about her experiences of domestic abuse in the New Statesman and The Pool, as well as helping raise over £130,000 for Refuge.

Helen is the author of the popular Guardian online fashion column, The Vintage Years, the response to which inspired THE INVISIBLE WOMAN. She moved to London in 2001 after losing patience with rampant workplace ageism in Leicestershire and Rutland where she grew up, was educated and later brought up her three daughters as a divorced single mum. She has also worked as a dancer, aerobics instructor, model, designer, artist, medical secretary and shop assistant - but not at the same time.

Praise for THE INVISIBLE WOMAN:

‘THE INVISIBLE WOMAN always speaks to me, and for me. It's about saying up yours to the cult of youth, but also about seeing the life of the 50 + as hilariously funny (not unlike the life of the 15 year old, when you come to think about it).’ – Professor Mary Beard

'THE INVISIBLE WOMAN in The Vintage Year reminds us that style and wit begin in youth but are mastered in middle-age. You can roundly stick your 20's. Hers is a voice for proper grown-ups not yet ready to come down, and I'm in.' - Alison Moyet

‘A funny look at those of a certain age who are fed up with being overlooked.’ – Good Housekeeping

TIM BAKER AND DEON MEYER LONGLISTED FOR TWO CRIME WRITERS' ASSOCIATION AWARDS

Two Blake Friedmann crime writers feature on the CWA’s Dagger prize longlists, announced at Crimefest this month. Tim Baker's FEVER CITY has been longlisted for the John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger, for the best UK-published crime novel by a debut author of any nationality. ICARUS by Deon Meyer, has been longlisted for the CWA International Dagger for crime novels, in translation, alongside his translator K.L. Seegers. This is Deon Meyer’s third appearance on the International Dagger list – THIRTEEN HOURS was shortlisted in 2011 and COBRA was shortlisted in 2015.

The winners of the prize will be announced at Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Festival in Harrogate this July. Other longlisted authors include Otessa Moshfegh, Jax Miller and Matt Johson on the John Creasey Dagger and Hideo Yokoyama, Johann Theorin and Pierre Lemaitre on the International Dagger. The full longlist for the John Creasey is here, and the International Dagger here. 

FEVER CITY is a searing counter-factual conspiracy thriller with three intertwining narratives. Nick Alston, a Los Angeles private investigator, is hired to find the kidnapped son of America's richest and most hated man; Hastings, a gun-for-hire in search of redemption, is also linked to the case. But both men soon become ensnared by a sinister cabal that spreads from the White House all the way to Dealey Plaza and the assassination on JFK. Decades later in Dallas, Alston's son stumbles across evidence from JFK conspiracy buffs that just might link his father to the shot heard round the world. FEVER CITY is a high-octane, nightmare journey through a Mad Men-era America of dark powers, corruption and conspiracy.

ICARUS witnesses the return of Meyer’s popular police detective character Benny Griessel, struggling to stay sober, and bruised by a colleague’s terrible suicide. Yet the discovery of a body buried beneath the sand dunes north of Cape Town will test his willpower even further. Why was notorious Ernst Richter, MD of a new tech startup, Alibi targeted? How exactly is a service that creates false appointments, documents and phone calls to enable people to cheat on their partners, linked to this high profile murder? With all eyes on Benny’s pursuit to uncover the truth, he will battle not just to track down the killer, but against the siren call of the whiskey bottle as well.

Praise for FEVER CITY:

‘Dense and complicated thriller with a fictional crime at its heart delves into the JFK assassination with walk-on parts for real-life figures from Marilyn Monroe to Richard Nixon. Half a century on from Dallas, the son of a 1960s LA private detective tries to piece it all together. An inventive take on the great American conspiracy theory...’ – The Sunday Times, Crime Club Newsletter January Picks 2016

'Tim Baker paints a lurid, sinister portrait of mid-century America, skilfully layering fact and fiction in a way that will forever change the way you think about the Kennedy assassination. An impressive debut.' – Peter Swanson

Praise for ICARUS and Deon Meyer:

‘Deon Meyer is not just South Africa’s greatest crime writer, he’s up there with the best in the world.’ —Marcel Berlins, The Times

‘Excellent … The richness of the characters, especially the multifaceted Benny, elevates this above most contemporary police procedurals.’ – Publisher’s Weekly, Starred Review

Deon Meyer’s Benny Griessel series is one of the high points of contemporary crime fiction, and the fifth title, ICARUS is his best yet….an expertly engineered tale of sex, lies and fraud.’ Laura Wilson, The Guardian, Crime Fiction Roundup 2015

Follow Tim on Twitter. 

Visit Deon's website here.

Follow Deon on Twitter.

IVAN VLADISLAVIC SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONALER LITERATURPREIS

We are thrilled to announce that DOUBLE NEGATIVE by Ivan Vladislavić has been shortlisted for the 8th Internationaler Literaturpreis, an annual award organized by Berlin’s Haus der Kulturen der Welt and the Foundation Elementarteilchen. The Prize, founded in 2009, is awarded to new works of contemporary prose fiction and their first German translations. It focuses on the many facets of the literary practices of both writing and translating, while aiming to enhance the literary canon beyond national borders. Both the winning author and translator receive a prize, recognizing the value of both the author’s and translator’s work.

DOUBLE NEGATIVE is translated into German by Thomas Brűckner, and published by Munich-based A1 Verlag. The shortlist announcement was accompanied by this statement from the jury: “This year’s shortlist gathers narratives whose authors’ and characters’ lives all hover between languages, cultures and systems that were rendered in German by translators who energize their language in a fascinating way and sometimes reinvent it altogether...  In DOUBLE NEGATIVE Ivan Vladislavić manages the feat of linking great themes of the history of civilisation (racial segregation in his home) with moral and aesthetic issues (what is the truth of photography) to an important story about the time during and after apartheid. After the first free elections, the narrator returns to South Africa from London – now a photographer himself – to observe the changes. But what has really changed? Vladislavić stages the history without any kitsch or sentimentality, making the book, beautifully translated by Thomas Brückner, a literary masterpiece.”

DOUBLE NEGATIVE is a haunting novel about photography, memory and truth, brilliant meditation on our ways of seeing and recording, on how and what we remember, and the art of getting lost.

In addition to German, the novel has been translated into Croatian, French, Italian, Swedish and Turkish. See more about the novel on the And Other Stories site here.

Ivan is in good company on the 6-title shortlist, chosen from 151 submissions, alongside Johannes Anyuru, Alexander Ilitchevsky, Joanna Bator, Valeria Luiselli and Shumona Sinha. See the full shortlist details here.

The award-winning author and translator will be announced on 14 June and the Award Ceremony will take place on 25 June as part of a polyglot literature festival at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt. Under the thematic focus “Extending the reading zone” all shortlisted authors and translators are invited to present their works in individual readings given in the original language as well as in German translation. Two roundtables bring together nominees, award-winner and jury members to discuss experiences and current modes of transnational literary production. DOUBLE NEGATIVE, published by And Other Stories in 2013, was originally published in a collector’s edition along with David Goldblatt’s photographs of Johannesburg, jointly by Contrasto in Italy and Umuzi in South Africa in 2011. The joint edition was winner of the Kraszna-Krausz Award 2011. The novel has won the M-Net Prize and the University of Johannesburg Prize and was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Literary Award in South Africa.

About the author

Ivan Vladislavić is the award-winning, critically-acclaimed author of a prestigious body of literary work. Published in ten international markets, Ivan lives in Johannesburg, where he is a Distinguished Professor in Creative Writing at the University of the Witwatersrand. He has won and been shortlisted for South Africa’s most prestigious prizes and was awarded the Windham Campbell Prize 2015.

See more on Ivan’s website.

Praise for DOUBLE NEGATIVE

‘A substantial pleasure of the book is the way Vladislavić has made non-fiction in its many forms – critical theory, the essay, (the illusion of) memoir – rub against the domain of storytelling, resulting in an incandescently intelligent and profound work. It is also a masterclass in making one art form – photography – speak within and through the containing vessel of another, the novel, and creating contrapuntal music out of it.’ – Neel Mukherjee, The Independent

‘Vladislavić is sensitively attuned to the uncanny phenomena that explode from the social fault lines of his city, a flaneur aware of the dangers of looking, as well as the ethical perils of photographing strangers, and his protagonist seems to embody the changing gaze of white men in South Africa over the past 30 years... Perhaps inadvertently, the novel appears to be passing judgment on the limitations of photography itself, as if to suggest that writing alone is capable of plumbing the surfaces obscuring so many and such diverse lives.’ – Patrick Flanery, The Guardian

'Vladislavic's prose has a flinty humour to it… Well received in his homeland, this publication marks the long-overdue arrival of one of South Africa's most finely tuned observers, the lightbox of his work deftly exposing us to the shadowplay of our…"concatenated universe".' – Ted Hodgkinson, The Times Literary Supplement