Colin Barrett has been named the winner of the 2014 Guardian First Book Award, in association with Waterstones, for his debut short story collection, Young Skins.
The collection - published by Jonathan Cape - comprises seven stories following the lives of young men and women in the fictional town of Glanbeigh in County Mayo, Ireland. Widely acclaimed since publishing in September 2013, the collection has also been awarded the 2014 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award and the 2014 Rooney Prize for Irish Literature.
The Guardian First Book Award recognises the finest new authors who have had their first book published in English in the last year, seeking excellence, promise and originality in both fiction and non-fiction.
As winner, Barrett receives a £10,000 prize plus an advertising package in the Guardian and the Observer.
Lisa Allardice, editor of Guardian Review and chair of the Guardian First Book Award judging panel, said:
“It was a particularly strong shortlist this year, and each of the titles was passionately debated. In the end, however, we awarded the prize to the book that, in the words of one of the judges, was ‘simply the best written’ of all the titles under discussion - and it is true that Colin Barrett barely hits a false note in the entire collection. We are all confident that we shall be hearing more from him for many years to come”.
The ceremony took place in central London on Wednesday 26 November 2014.
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Notes to editors
The judging panel this year was:
- Lisa Allardice - editor, Guardian Review
- Tristram Hunt, Labour member of parliament, Stoke-on-Trent
- Stuart Broom, events programmer, Waterstones
- Mary Beard - professor of classics, University of Cambridge
- Josh Cohen - psychoanalyst & professor of literature, Goldsmiths University
- Anne Enright - author
The other shortlisted titles were:
- The Night Guest, Fiona MacFarlane (fiction) [Sceptre]
- Do No Harm, Henry Marsh (non-fiction) [Weidenfeld & Nicolson]
- Age of Ambition, Evan Osnos (non-fiction) [Bodley Head]
- Things to Make and Break, May-Lan Tan (fiction) [CB Editions]
Colin Barrett
Colin Barrett is the author of Young Skins, his award-winning debut collection of short stories, published in 2013. After graduating from University College Dublin, Colin worked for a mobile-phone provider in Dublin, writing in his spare time before leaving this job to take an MA in creative writing. His stories were first published in Irish journal The Stinging Fly, which released Young Skins in Ireland, before being picked up by major publishers Jonathan Cape in the UK, and Grove in the US. He is 32.
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