Winners have been unveiled in four categories for the inaugural Nero Book Awards, celebrating outstanding books and writers from the U.K. and Ireland. Sponsored by Caffè Nero, the prizes are run in partnership with Right to Dream, Brunel University London and the Booksellers Association. The awards were created following the end of the Costa Book Awards and should not be confused with the Nero Award, sponsored by the Wolfe Pack, the official Nero Wolfe Literary Society. This year's Nero Book Awards category winners are:
Children's fiction: The Swifts by Beth Lincoln, illustrated by Claire Powell
Debut fiction: Close to Home by Michael Magee
Fiction: The Bee Sting by Paul Murray
Nonfiction: Strong Female Character by Fern Brady
From these four category winners, one book will be selected as the overall winner and recipient of the Nero Gold Prize, Book of the Year, to be named March 14 in London. Each category winner receives £5,000 (about $6,350), with the overall winner getting an additional £30,000 (about $38,090).
Nero Gold Prize judging panel chair Bernardine Evaristo said: "At a time when literature is under threat from the addictive distractions of social media and the internet, literary prizes not only celebrate individual writers and elevate careers, but draw attention to a beautiful art form that requires and rewards sustained concentration and engagement with words, other people's lives, and the imagination. The Nero Book Awards are a major new prize. I'm looking forward to chairing the Nero Gold Prize, and selecting a book from the category winners that offers readers exceptional riches, one which we judges think deserves to be honored as the overall book of the year."