Judges praise ‘searingly intimate’ debut, while Claire Fuller wins best novel and John Preston takes biography prize
Caleb Azumah Nelson was working part-time in the Apple Store in London when he decided to “take a gamble” on himself and try to write his first novel. On Tuesday evening, his debut, Open Water, was named winner of the Costa first novel award, praised by judges as “deeply moving, searingly intimate and just so now”.
Open Water follows the lives of two young Black British artists – he a photographer, she a dancer – as they start to fall in love after meeting in a south-east London pub. It beat titles including AK Blakemore’s The Manningtree Witches and Kate Sawyer’s The Stranding to win the £5,000 Costa prize. “We all loved this contemporary portrait of masculinity – it’s like nothing else we’ve ever read,” said judges.
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