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Poet Jo Shapcott was the surprise winner of the Costa Book of the Year last night (25th January) for her “special, original, compassionate” collection Of Mutability (Faber).
It is the second year in a row that poetry has scooped the £30,000 award, after Christopher Reid won last year for his collection A Scattering (Arete).
It is also Faber's second poetry win this week after Derek Walcott took home the T S Eliot Prize for Poetry for his collection White Egrets on Monday [24th January].
Stephen Page, Faber c.e.o. and publisher said at the awards that he was "surprised and delighted" at Shapcott's win. He added: "This is a win for us, this is a win for poetry. It's extraordinarily uplifting that the Costa's would recognise poetry two years in a row.
"Poetry can reach a large audience, like Seamus Heaney's Human Chain which we published the hell out of last year. We think Jo has the potential to reach that kind of audience."
Of the five category winners, Shapcott beat bookies’ favourite Edmund de Waal’s memoir The Hare With Amber Eyes (Chatto), novelist Maggie O’Farrell’s The Hand That First Held Mine (Headline Review), debut writer Kishwar Desai’s Witness the Night (Beautiful Books) and debut children’s author Jason Wallace’s Out of Shadows (Andersen).
Chair of judges, Andrew Neil, said of the collection, which was inspired by Shapcott’s experience of breast cancer: “We were captivated by the poetry in this special, original, compassionate, uplifting and accessible book that readers will go back to again and again.”
Waterstone’s spokesperson Jon Howells told the Telegraph: "The Costa can rival the Man Booker in terms of creating bestsellers. Two wins in a row for the poetry category must surely mark some sort of renaissance.
"While bookshops might not see the jump in sales that would have come with a more commercial winner, one cannot begrudge this excellent collection of poems, serious yet with a warmth and humour that shines through."
Last year's winner A Scattering by Christopher Reid, the first ever book by Oxford indie Arete, has sold 13,645 copies for £102,654 through Nielsen BookScan's Total Consumer Market since winning.
The previous year's overall winner, Sebastian Barry's novel The Secret Scripture (Faber) sold 318,298 for £1.9m in the 12 months after getting the award.
The Costa Book Awards recognise the most enjoyable books of the last year by writers based in the UK and Ireland.