Carys Davies has won the £10,000 (about $13,280) RSL Ondaatje Prize, which recognizes a distinguished work of fiction, nonfiction or poetry, evoking the spirit of a place, for her novel Clear, published in the U.S. by Scribner.
Chair of judges Ruth Gilligan said: "Clear is a genuine masterpiece. The sense of place is sublime, island life rendered in exquisite, craggy detail, yet somehow it also manages to be a universal reflection on the meaning of home, of belonging, of family. Davies packs so much into so few pages, but the writing never feels cold or spars--rather there is a real generosity of spirit here which, by the end, leaves you utterly changed."
Another judge, Charlie Craggs, said: "Clear is beautifully written, with an even more beautiful message, about human connection that's so needed in the world right now."
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Finalists have been unveiled for the £3,000 (about $3,985) Orwell Prize for Political Fiction as well as the Orwell Prize for Political Writing (nonfiction), both of which recognize works that strive to meet Orwell's own ambition "to make political writing into an art." The winners will be named June 25. Finalists for all four Orwell Prize categories are available here. The book finalists are:
Political Writing
Looking at Women, Looking at War by Victoria Amelina
Autocracy Inc. by Anne Applebaum
The Baton and the Cross by Lucy Ash
The Coming Storm by Gabriel Gatehouse
Broken Threads by Mishal Husain
The Forbidden Garden of Leningrad by Simon Parkin
At the Edge of Empire by Edward Wong
The World of the Cold War: 1945-1991 by Vladislav Zubok
Political Fiction
Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Universality by Natasha Brown
The Harrow by Noah Eaton
Precipice by Robert Harris
The Accidental Immigrants by Jo McMillan
Heart, Be at Peace by Donal Ryan
There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak
Parallel Lines by Edward St Aubyn