Peter Forbes won of the £50,000 (US$81,248) Warwick Prize for Writing for his book Dazzled and Deceived: Mimicry and Camouflage.
The biennial prize from the University of Warwick "is an international
cross-disciplinary award open to any genre or form of writing."
Michael Rosen, chair of the judging panel, said Dazzled and Deceived
"was singled out for a number of reasons. It’s a book about scientific
concepts; it’s a book about art and it’s actually an exciting read
because Forbes does what all good storytellers do--he reveals and
conceals in equal measure. It is also a book of massive surprises. How
does he bring the surrealists into this? I was delighted to revisit my
old friends the melanin moths who were the standby of A-Level and first
year university teaching about evolution. At one moment I thought the
whole story was going down the pan. Would my education be in ruins? But
no, Forbes pulled the moths from the fire!"
The Warwick Prize shortlist also included The Wasted Vigil by Nadeem Aslam, The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna, The Literature Police: Apartheid Censorship and its Cultural Consequences by Peter D McDonald, What Color is the Sacred by Michael Taussig and White Egrets by Derek Walcott.
