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Three debuts make John Llewellyn Rhys shortlist

15.10.10 | Charlotte Williams

Three début titles are among those jostling for the £5,000 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize this year, with a poetry collection and a historical novel also making the cut.

Orange-longlisted début novels Black Mamba Boy by Nadifa Mohamed (Harper) and The Still Point by Amy Sackville (Portobello) are two of them. Daniel Swift’s non-fiction Bomber Country (Hamish Hamilton), detailing the life of his RAF-pilot grandfather, is the third title by a first-time author.

A rallying cry against the gender divide, Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine (Icon Books), a fiction about the Massacre of Glencoe, Corrag by Susan Fletcher (Fourth Estate), and poetry collection A Light Song of Light by Kei Miller (Carcanet), complete the shortlist. 

Claire Allfree, literary editor of Metro and head of the judging panel, said: “Together the books provide an excellent snapshot of the ambition and originality of today’s best new writers.”

The prize, founded in 1942 and run by Booktrust, is open to British and Commonwealth writers of fiction, non-fiction and poetry, aged 35 or under at the time of publication.

The results will be announced on 23rd November. 

• Charlotte Williams
• John Llewellyn Rhys Prize
• Media