Paphides wins Christopher Bland Prize with Broken Greek

Pete Paphides has won the £10,000 RSL Christopher Bland Prize for his “extraordinary, moving and funny” coming-of-age memoir Broken Greek (Quercus).

Paphides was crowned the winner of the prize on 3rd June. The prize celebrates outstanding achievements for a debut novelist or non-fiction writer first published aged 50 or over.

The book explores the music journalist's experiences as a child of Cypriot parents growing up in Birmingham and his early immersion in pop music.

Paphides said: “When I finished work on Broken Greek, I didn’t even know if it would find a publisher. So, to have even been shortisted for the RSL Christopher Bland Prize, was way beyond my wildest expectations. Looking at the list of nominees, I didn’t imagine I was in with a shot of winning. I don’t know if Rosanna, Richard, Michael, Louise and Marina feel this way too, but when you write your first book relatively late in life, you feel like someone will correct you if you have the temerity to describe yourself as an author. One of the many beautiful things about this prize is that it will undoubtedly embolden older writers plotting a course through their first book. And I’m grateful and touched beyond measure to be a small part of its story.”

Chair of judges Mary Beard said: “Broken Greek is an original, wry and radical memoir, tracing Paphides' life against the music that formed its backing track, from ABBA to Dexys Midnight Runners. It takes the reader to the complicated heart of popular music and its paradoxes — it's a book about sound that starts from the silence of Paphides himself, who as a child refused to speak for almost four years.”

Paphides started his career in music journalism at Melody Maker before going on to write for Time Out, the Guardian, Mojo, Q, Observer Music Monthly and the Times, where he spent five years as chief rock critic.

His book was picked from a shortlist featuring Michael Cashman's One of Them (Bloomsbury), Marina Wheeler's The Lost Homestead (Hodder & Stoughton), Rosanna Amaka's The Book of Echoes (Doubleday), Richard Atkinson's Mr Atkinson's Rum Contract (Fourth Estate) and Louise Fein’s People Like Us (Head of Zeus).