Whitbread Announced

The winners of the Whitbread award have been announced–they are:

  • Novel: Small Island by Andrea Levy (who also won the Orange Prize last year for this book).
  • First novel: Eve Green by Susan Fletcher.
  • Biography: My Heart is My Own: The Life of Mary Queen of Scots by John Guy.
  • Children’s literature: Not the End of the World by Geraldine McCaughrean.
  • Poetry: Corpus by Michael Symmons Roberts

    Now the judges (including actor Hugh Grant) will pick the overall winner. Coverage of this has started in all the usual places, and most of it is decent, though the Times takes the award for worst headline about: Whitbread judges favour women writers. Didn’t we just go through this with the NBA? And frankly, if 3 out of 5 are women, that could hardly be called favouring! God!