THE 2015 Portico Literary Prize winners are Richard Benson for The Valley (non-fiction) and Benjamin Myers for Beastings (fiction and poetry). Each received a £10,000 cheque at a prize dinner in the Mercure Manchester Piccadilly Hotel, hosted by queen of crime fiction Val McDermid, herself a previous recipient of the prize first established by the Manchester-based Georgian Portico Library 30 years ago.
The Girl abducts a baby and is chased across bleakest Cumbria by a sadistic cleric known only as the Priest
Supported by the Arts Council England and The Zochonis Charitable Trust, it has become a kind of Northern Booker, biennially awarded to the highest quality books set wholly or mainly in the North of England. Both 2015 winners fit this bill admirably.
Benson’s The Valley (Bloomsbury pb £9.99) traces 100 years of his own family’s history in the Dearne Valley, South Yorkshire, an epic account that accommodates World Wars, the decline of the coalfields and all the social upheavals of the 20th century, while tracing the minutiae of family life in remarkable, vivid dialogue.
Benjamin Myers with Val McDermid and Portico chairman Lynne Allan.The protagonist of Durham-born Myers’ austere Beastings (pb £8.99), in contrast, is a deaf mute referred to as The Girl, who abducts a baby and is chased across bleakest Cumbria by a sadistic cleric known only as the Priest.
Beastings is published by Hebden Bridge small press Bluemoose Books, whose founders remortgaged their house to set up. Among the authors Myers pipped for the fiction prize was one of his own literary heroes, Alan Garner, whose latest novel is called Boneland. Surprisingly, this time, four out of the six shortlisted were poetry collections.
The non-fiction shortlist was drawn up by a panel of judges that includes the acclaimed historian Professor Michael Wood; ex Albertos’ ukulele-playing singer, writer and broadcaster CP Lee and journalist/Confidential contributor Neil Sowerby. They are pictured below with Benson (centre) and Val McDermid.
The fiction/poetry judges were poet and priest Rachel Mann, novelist Joe Stretch, and former Portico Prize Winner and director of the International Anthony Burgess Foundation Professor Andrew Biswell.
