Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow wins Best First Novel Award
Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow’s All The Little Bird-Hearts (Tinder Press) has won the 2024 Best First Novel Award.
This year’s guest adjudicator, journalist and broadcaster Samira Ahmed, presented the £2,500 award, which is run by the Authors’ Club, at a reception at the National Liberal Club in London on Thursday (22nd May).
Ahmed said: “All The Little Bird-Hearts has continued to haunt me since I read it. I was captivated by its voice and perspective and Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow’s thrilling plotting, with its showdown at a summer garden party.
“Barlow’s exploration of the intersecting dynamics of class, poverty and wealth, patriarchy, autism and the bond between a single mother and her teenage daughter is a magnificently told story. Every ingredient of a great novel was here.”
Fire Rush by Jacqueline Crooks was highly commended by Ahmed, who said: “Crooks’ highly original voice took my breath away. This is a magical book which turned her story of love, fear, racism and ancestry from 1970s London to Bristol to Jamaica into something mythic. I cannot wait to read what Crooks does next.”
The shortlist also included: One Small Voice, by Santanu Bhattacharya (Fig Tree), The New Life by Tom Crewe (Chatto & Windus), Pearl by Sian Hughes (The Indigo Press), Close to Home by Michael Magee (Hamish Hamilton).
The prize is for the debut novel of a British, Irish or UK-based author, first published in the UK. The winning novel is selected by a guest adjudicator from a shortlist drawn up by a panel of Authors’ Club members, chaired by Lucy Popescu, who said: “This is a perceptive and nuanced novel that beautifully illuminates issues around neurodiversity.
“Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow skilfully portrays her protagonist’s complex relationships and interactions.”
