'Fantastic talent' Cal Flyn wins £10,000 Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Trust Young Writer of the Year Award

Scottish author and journalist Cal Flyn has been named winner of the 2021 Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Trust Young Writer of the Year Award for her "simply exceptional" account of ecological diversity, Islands of Abandonment (HarperCollins).

The award, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, spotlights the best work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry by a British or Irish author aged between 18 and 35.

Flyn will receive £10,000 in prize money, a sum that has doubled due to new sponsorship from the Charlotte Aitken Trust. She will also win a bespoke 10-week residency with the University of Warwick, in addition to two years’ membership at the London Library. 

The announcement was made at an in-person event at the London Library on Thursday 24th February, hosted by the Sunday Times literary editor Andrew Holgate, alongside judges Andrew O’Hagan, Tahmima Anam, Claire Lowdon and Gonzalo C. Garcia, as well as chair of the Charlotte Aitken Trust, novelist Sebastian Faulks.

Islands of Abandonment, which was previously shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize and the Wainwright Conservation Award, explores abandoned places, and what happens when nature reclaims those spaces.

 "We all fell hard for this book: the originality of thinking, the intellectual rigour, the love for all that is gone and yet not entirely lost and, of course, the sheer magic of the prose," said Anam. "Cal Flyn finds sublime beauty in the most unlikely of places, and in doing so gives us all reason to hope that our planet may yet be saved. You cannot ask for a better reason to read."

"Flyn’s prose is simply exceptional," Garcia added. "Islands of Abandonment surprised me as a skilful and original work whose powerful lyricism heightens chronicles of blight and restoration to a renewed awareness of the environmental impact of our presence and importantly, our absence. It’s difficult not to get excited about the future of this magnificent young writer. A fantastic talent and deserving winner."

The 2021 award also marks a new partnership with Waterstones which is supporting the prize with in-store POS in shops across the country, including bespoke 30th-anniversary bookmarks showcasing the heritage of the award and this year’s Young Writers. Waterstones will also share tailored content across all its channels, including a specially commissioned piece for its blog and YouTube channel and Waterstones Plus newsletter, which reaches more than one million subscribers.

Bea Carvalho, head of Fiction at Waterstones, said: "We are thrilled that Cal Flyn has won the Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award. Islands of Abandonment is non-fiction at its most urgent and fascinating: it is a stunningly clever and energising piece of writing which begs to be read and recommended widely. We are delighted to have a new opportunity to celebrate this brilliant book following its stint as Waterstones Non-fiction Book of the Month in January."

Previous authors who have been recognised by the award include Zadie Smith, Simon Armitage, Max Porter and Sally Rooney.