The Bookseller.com

2nd December 2008

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Thompson wins PEN/Ackerley prize

19.07.07 Anna Richardson

Brian Thompson has won this year's PEN/Ackerley Prize for Keeping Mum (Atlantic).

Thompson's account of a dysfunctional wartime childhood beat fellow shortlisted titles, Running for the Hills by Horatio Clare (John Murray), Seminary Boy by John Cornwell (Fourth Estate), Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins by Rupert Everett (Little Brown), The Year of the Jouncer by Simon
Gray (Granta) and Mother Country by Jeremy Harding (Faber).

The £1,000 award for literary autobiography was judged this year by Francis King, Michael Holroyd, Peter Parker and Colin Spencer and was presented at the English PEN summer party last night (18th July).

Past winners include Jenny Diski, Lorna Sage, Margaret Forster, Blake Morrison, Diana Athill and Dan Jacobson and Tim Lott.

Anna Richardson Brian Thompson Prize PEN/Ackerley prize