The Bookseller.com

15th October 2008

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Costa's all-female shortlist

21.11.07 Anna Richardson

Emigrant writers dominate an all-female First Novel category shortlist in this year's Costa Book Awards. Tahmima Anam's A Golden Age (John Murray) is vying with Catherine O'Flynn's What Was Lost (Tindal Street), Nikita Lalwani's Gifted (Viking), and Roma Tearne for Mosquito (HarperPress) for the prize.

Début poet Daljit Nagra, meanwhile, gets the nod in the poetry category, alongside Jean Sprackland, John Fuller and Ian Duhig. Rose Tremain and A L Kennedy are among those shortlisted for the Best Novel.

The awards attracted 553 entries, and included a record number of submissions in both the Novel and Children's Book categories, with 150 and 138 entries respectively.

Winners in the five categories, who each receive £5,000, will be announced on 3rd January 2008, and the overall winner, who receives £25,000, will be announced on 22nd January 2008.

Last year, Stef Penney's The Tenderness of Wolves (Quercus) took home the overall prize.


Full list of shortlisted titles:

Novel shortlist

Neil Bartlett's Skin Lane (Serpent's Tail), A L Kennedy's Day (Cape), Rupert Thomson's Death of a Murderer (Bloomsbury), and Rose Tremain's The Road Home (Chatto)

First Novel shortlist

Tahmima Anam's A Golden Age (John Murray), Catherine O'Flynn's What Was Lost (Tindal Street), Nikita Lalwani's Gifted (Viking), and Roma Tearne for Mosquito (HarperPress)

Biography shortlist

Julie Kavanagh's Rudolf Nureyev (Fig Tree), Ben Macintyre's Agent ZigZag (Bloomsbury), Simon Sebag Montefiore's Young Stalin (Weidenfeld), and Michael Simkins's Fatty Batter (Ebury)

Poetry shortlist

Ian Duhig's The Speed of Dark (Picador), John Fuller's The Space of Joy (Chatto), Daljit Nagra's Look We Have Coming to Dover! (Faber), and Jean Sprackland's Tilt (Cape Poetry)

Children's Book shortlist

Ann Kelley's The Bower Bird (Luath), Elizabeth Laird's Crusade (Macmillan), Meg Rosoff's What I Was (Puffin), and Marcus Sedgwick's Blood Red Snow White
(Orion)

Anna Richardson Prize Costa Book Awards