Olivia Laing Longlisted for Gordon Burn Prize 2018
Thirteen titles are in the running for prize rewarding 'some of the boldest and most fearless new books published in the United Kingdom and the United States'.
Alongside Crudo by Olivia Laing (Picador), the longlist for the Gordon Burn Prize 2018 is:
? To Throw Away Unopened, Viv Albertine (Faber & Faber)
? The Princess of Herself, Roberta Allen (Pelekinesis)
? Census, Jesse Ball (Granta)
? H(a)ppy, Nicola Barker (Heinemann)
? In Our Mad and Furious City, Guy Gunaratne (Tinder Press)
? Madame Zero, Sarah Hall (Faber & Faber)
? Keegan and Dalglish, Richard T. Kelly (Simon & Schuster)
? The Cost of Living, Deborah Levy (Hamish Hamilton)
? A Hero for High Times, Ian Marchant (Cape)
? I'll Be Gone in the Dark, Michelle McNamara (Faber & Faber)
? The Debatable Land, Graham Robb (Picador)
? Don?t Skip Out on Me, Willy Vlautin (Faber & Faber)
According to a statement from backers New Writing North: 'Gordon Burn?s writing was precise and rigorous, and often blurred the line between fact and fiction. He wrote across a wide range of subjects, from celebrities to serial killers, politics to contemporary art; his works include the novels Fullalove and Born Yesterday: The News as a Novel and non-fiction Happy Like Murderers: The Story of Fred and Rosemary West, Best and Edwards: Football, Fame and Oblivion and Sex & Violence, Death & Silence: Encounters with Recent Art.
'The Gordon Burn Prize, founded in 2012 and run in partnership by the Gordon Burn Trust, New Writing North, Faber & Faber and Durham Book Festival, seeks to celebrate the work of those who follow in his footsteps: novels that dare to enter history and interrogate the past; non-fiction adventurous enough to inhabit characters and events to create new and vivid realities.'
The judges for the Gordon Burn Prize are critic and journalist Alex Clark, chair of the judges, poet and author Kei Miller, artist Gillian Wearing and musician Andrew Weatherall. The shortlist will be announced on 19 July and the prize itself will be awarded at Durham Town Hall at the Durham Book Festival, a Durham County Council festival, on 11 October.
Claire Malcolm, chief executive of New Writing North, said: "Each year the books we consider for the prize expand my horizons and draw to our attention to writers at the forefront of either imagining what a novel can be or pushing non-fiction in new directions.
"Gordon?s work often grasped a moment in time and offered it up viewed through a new lens and many of the books on this list do just that, whether through football, serial killers or culture. The selection this year is stunning: writers pushing at how to shape stories and reflect lives that we don?t always see ? whether that?s Mexican boxers or women turning into foxes."
Alongside Crudo by Olivia Laing (Picador), the longlist for the Gordon Burn Prize 2018 is:
? To Throw Away Unopened, Viv Albertine (Faber & Faber)
? The Princess of Herself, Roberta Allen (Pelekinesis)
? Census, Jesse Ball (Granta)
? H(a)ppy, Nicola Barker (Heinemann)
? In Our Mad and Furious City, Guy Gunaratne (Tinder Press)
? Madame Zero, Sarah Hall (Faber & Faber)
? Keegan and Dalglish, Richard T. Kelly (Simon & Schuster)
? The Cost of Living, Deborah Levy (Hamish Hamilton)
? A Hero for High Times, Ian Marchant (Cape)
? I'll Be Gone in the Dark, Michelle McNamara (Faber & Faber)
? The Debatable Land, Graham Robb (Picador)
? Don?t Skip Out on Me, Willy Vlautin (Faber & Faber)
According to a statement from backers New Writing North: 'Gordon Burn?s writing was precise and rigorous, and often blurred the line between fact and fiction. He wrote across a wide range of subjects, from celebrities to serial killers, politics to contemporary art; his works include the novels Fullalove and Born Yesterday: The News as a Novel and non-fiction Happy Like Murderers: The Story of Fred and Rosemary West, Best and Edwards: Football, Fame and Oblivion and Sex & Violence, Death & Silence: Encounters with Recent Art.
'The Gordon Burn Prize, founded in 2012 and run in partnership by the Gordon Burn Trust, New Writing North, Faber & Faber and Durham Book Festival, seeks to celebrate the work of those who follow in his footsteps: novels that dare to enter history and interrogate the past; non-fiction adventurous enough to inhabit characters and events to create new and vivid realities.'
The judges for the Gordon Burn Prize are critic and journalist Alex Clark, chair of the judges, poet and author Kei Miller, artist Gillian Wearing and musician Andrew Weatherall. The shortlist will be announced on 19 July and the prize itself will be awarded at Durham Town Hall at the Durham Book Festival, a Durham County Council festival, on 11 October.
Claire Malcolm, chief executive of New Writing North, said: "Each year the books we consider for the prize expand my horizons and draw to our attention to writers at the forefront of either imagining what a novel can be or pushing non-fiction in new directions.
"Gordon?s work often grasped a moment in time and offered it up viewed through a new lens and many of the books on this list do just that, whether through football, serial killers or culture. The selection this year is stunning: writers pushing at how to shape stories and reflect lives that we don?t always see ? whether that?s Mexican boxers or women turning into foxes."