Mortimer wins £10k Desmond Elliott Prize for ‘completely unique’ Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies

Maddie Mortimer has won the 2022 Desmond Elliott Prize for her "completely unique" debut novel Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies (Picador). 

The book, published in March, was announced as the best debut of the year on 1st July, picked by a judging panel chaired by author and previous Desmond Elliott Prize-winner Derek Owusu. He was joined on the judging panel by journalist and author Symeon Brown and the programme and commissions manager for Cheltenham Literature Festival, Lyndsey Fineran.  

“With Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies, Maddie Mortimer has penetrated the body and spirit of literature, taking an experience, one familiar to so many of us, and making it completely unique,” Owusu said. 

“The experimentation with language, form and ideas, offers us something that is precious and personal to each writer: human truth. It’s a courageous feat, and one executed with the wisdom of a sagacious observer. This is a book full of poetry and wonder, interior and exterior examination, sadness, though without the pessimism that sometimes accompanies it, love, and through all things, hope.

“Though not easy to choose a winner – we went back and forth for days after the decision was due – when we finally came to an agreement, we felt confident that we would be assisting with, and bearing witness to, the launching of a new and spectacular talent.”

Mortimer’s book was chosen from a shortlist of three, featuring Iron Annie by Luke Cassidy (Bloomsbury) and Keeping the House by Tice Cin (And Other Stories).

In addition to the £10,000 prize money, Mortimer — whose novel was inspired by her mother, who died of cancer in 2010, will receive tailored, year-round support and mentorship from the National Centre for Writing, which runs the Desmond Elliott Prize as part of its Early Career Awards portfolio.

Fineran said: “Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies was a standout read. To craft both a coming of age and a death narrative in one; create a moving and astute portrait of a family dealing with terminal illness in a way that is both sensitive and wise beyond the author’s years, and employ dazzlingly inventive elements that push the form of the novel, and yet remain in complete command of the narrative in hand would be hugely impressive even for an author much further in their career. Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies marks Maddie Mortimer as a major new literary voice. I Iook forward to seeing her career flourish.”

The prize is an annual award for a first novel written in English and published in the UK, named after literary agent and publisher Desmond Elliott. First awarded in 2008, former winners include Eimear McBride for A Girl is a Half-formed Thing (Faber & Faber), Claire Fuller for Our Endless Numbered Days (Fig Tree) and Preti Taneja for We That Are Young (Galley Beggar).