THE BEDLAM STACKS shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature’s Encore Award 2018

10th April, 2018

We’re thrilled to announce that Natasha Pulley has made the shortlist for the Royal Society of Literature’s Encore Award 2018, with her wonderful book The Bedlam Stacks.

The Encore Award, which presents £10,000 to the best second novel of the year, was first given in 1990 to celebrate the achievement of outstanding second novels. This year’s judges are critic, journalist and broadcaster Alex Clark (Chair), poet and children’s author Julia Copus and Ted Hodgkinson, Senior Programmer for Literature and Spoken Word at Southbank Centre. The Award is administered by the RSL.

The judges comment:

‘Once more, we were impressed and delighted by the sheer quality of the submissions – particularly their range of subject matter, and the writers’ willingness to innovate and to imagine new ways of telling stories. Our shortlist takes us from a menacing rural England to the noise and frantic modernity of Lagos, destination for a group of disparate travellers; from the hustlers and grifters of Cork City to a crumbling beach house filled with decaying books and a ruptured family; from tales of 19th-century derring-do to a South Africa on the brink of huge change. Here are the gothic, the comic, the epic, the domestic, the romantic and the picaresque, each with a thrilling new voice’s stamp on it.’

The winner will be announced by A. L. Kennedy on Wednesday 9 May 2018.

For further information about the prize and the shortlisted titles, take a look at The Royal Society of Literature Website.