Yesterday,
the winners of the Costa Book Awards were announced. (The Costa Book Awards is one of the UK's
most prestigious literary prizes; books written by authors based in the UK and
Ireland are eligible.)
The winner
in the Novel category is Sebastian Barry for his Days Without End.
Thomas
McNulty, aged barely seventeen and having fled the Great Famine in Ireland,
signs up for the U.S. Army in the 1850s. With his brother in arms, John Cole, Thomas
goes on to fight in the Indian Wars—against the Sioux and the Yurok—and,
ultimately, the Civil War. Orphans of
terrible hardships themselves, the men find these days to be vivid and alive,
despite the horrors they see and are complicit in. Their lives are further enriched and
endangered when a young Indian girl crosses their path, and the possibility of lasting
happiness emerges, if only they can survive.
The judges
said, “A miracle of a book – both epic and intimate – that manages to create
spaces for love and safety in the noise and chaos of history.”
Sebastian
Barry first took the Costa Novel Award for The
Secret Scripture in 2008. Days
Without End has been described as stylistically similar to The Secret Scripture. I loved The
Secret Scripture and so am anxious to read Barry’s latest.
For information
about the four finalists in the Novel category, go to http://schatjesshelves.blogspot.ca/2016/11/2016-costa-book-awards-shortlists_29.html.
There are
five categories in the Costa Book Awards - First Novel, Novel, Biography,
Poetry, and Children's Book. For information
about the winners in all the categories, go to http://www.costa.co.uk/media/450405/2016-category-award-winners.pdf.
On January
31, one of the five winning books will be selected as the overall Costa Book of
the Year.
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