Diwakar and Cuttle announced as winners of the Morley Prize for Unpublished Writers of Colour

Joseph Diwakar and Jade Cuttle have won the Morley Prize for Unpublished Writers of Colour, and were each awarded with £500 and an individual consultation with an agent or editor.

With over 100 entries in the running, Diwaker’s debut novel I Shall Not Want took the fiction prize, while Cuttle won in the newly-created non-fiction category for Silthood. The winners were presented their awards by prize sponsor Rachel Mills and head non-fiction judge and Square Peg publishing director Marianne Tatepo at a ceremony held at Morley College London’s North Kensington Centre for Skills. 

Mills, director of the literary agency RML, said: “Joseph Diwaker creates a heartbreaking work centred around the character of James, who is tormented by his sexuality and its perceived conflict with his Christian faith.

“The author himself described the work as one centred around challenging questions of religion, shame, conversion therapy and passion as we follow this young man and his desperate quest to reconcile who he is with what he believes, a conflict which comes to a head in his relationship with his enigmatic mentor, a preacher named Ian who he views as his salvation but is also part of his emotional fall.”

Diwaker said: "I’m very grateful to the judges and Morley College for their vote of confidence in my debut novel I Shall Not Want - the story of an abusive pastor and one boy’s struggle for redemption from shame. I must also congratulate my co-winner Jade Cuttle. Being mixed race, I can often feel washed up and dropped by the competing tides and currents of history, so I think Silthood is a great concept and I can’t wait to read it.”

On the non-fiction winner, Tatepo added: “We stepped into the world of Silthood, where nature comes to life in an almost anthropomorphic way, as the protagonist bends language like air, to create a lyrical dissection of nature, class and race. It’s a stunning, original, genre-bending entry in the non-fiction category."

Cuttle said: "I left a great job at the Times to travel and write this strange muddy nature memoir about my search for ‘silthood’, tracing the ancient kinlines between soil and self. I’ve slept in jungles, mountains, even my garden shed, and immersed myself in mudlarking, medieval re-enacting, and metal detecting. I’m excited now more than ever to find the agent and publisher to bring this book into the world."