Mantel shortlisted for BBC award
Budleigh Salterton-based Hilary Mantel’s controversial story ‘The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher’ has made the shortlist for the BBC National Short Story Award 2015 with Book Trust. Unpublished stories by ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’ author Mark Haddon, Jonathan Buckley, Frances Leviston, and Jeremy Page are also in the running for this year’s Award. The shortlist of five stories was announced yesterday evening (Wednesday 16 September) during BBC Radio 4’s ‘Front Row’.
Now celebrating its tenth birthday, the Award is one of the most prestigious for a single short story, with the winning author receiving £15,000, the runner-up £3,000, and three further shortlisted authors £500 each.
Selected from 438 entries, this year’s shortlist is:
• ‘Briar Road’ by Jonathan Buckley
• ‘Bunny’ by Mark Haddon
• ‘Broderie Anglaise’ by Frances Leviston
• ‘The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher’ by Hilary Mantel
• ‘Do It Now, Jump The Table’ by Jeremy Page
Each story expresses an unexpected side of British life. Unlike previous years where stories have ranged from Africa to New York, this year’s shortlisted stories are all based in the UK, many in parts of the country that are unsung in literature: suburban housing estates, small towns, rural Wales. From Frances Leviston’s delicate evocation of mother-daughter tensions in ‘Broderie Anglaise’ to Jonathan Buckley’s poignant story of a psychic investigating a missing teenager, ‘Briar Rose’, to Hilary Mantel’s intruder who hovers at the window hoping to catch a shot at Margaret Thatcher, these stories are set firmly behind closed doors. We also encounter love in unusual forms: in Mark Haddon’s ‘Bunny’ a morbidly obese young man makes an unlikely friend as his world shrinks around him, and in Jeremy Page’s touchingly comic ‘Do It Now Jump The Table’ a young man meets his girlfriend’s parents for the first time – with the added twist that the parents are nudists.
This year’s finalists come from a number of disciplines: Jonathan Buckley is a novelist and former ‘Rough Guides’ editor; Jeremy Page has written for stage and screen and Frances Leviston is a poet. None have been shortlisted for the Award before.
The UK’s bestselling crime novelist, Rebus creator and Award judge Ian Rankin says: ‘It was great fun reading so many terrific short stories, but really tough to whittle the list down and pick a winner! The quality was matched by variety of approach and subject matter, leaving me in no doubt as to the continuing robust good health of the form.’
Ian Rankin is joined on this year’s judging panel by novelist and short story writer, Tash Aw, 2013 BBC National Short Story Award-winner, Sarah Hall, and Books Editor at BBC Radio, Di Speirs – and the panel is chaired by former BBC foreign correspondent Allan Little.
2015 sees the tenth birthday of this prestigious award, which was established in order to raise the profile of this important literary form. Buckley, Haddon, Leviston, Mantel and Page join distinguished alumni such as Lionel Shriver, Rose Tremain, William Trevor, Hanif Kureishi and Zadie Smith. As well as rewarding the most renowned short story writers, the Award has raised the profile of many up-and-coming-writers at a crucial stage in their career, including Erin Soros, Lisa Blower, Francesca Rhydderch and Julian Gough.
Di Speirs says: ‘We have come a long way in the ten years since our first BBC National Short Story Award when the short story in the UK felt endangered – not much published, read or feted, though always a core part of BBC Radio. A decade of reading the best short fiction produced here, and the rise of home-grown collections, often headlined by National Short Story Award shortlisted stories, is proof that the story is once again flourishing, constantly inventive, constantly challenging. This year’s shortlist is no exception – comic or poignant or both, they all throw the glancing light that a short story can do so well, into overlooked corners of Britain, and in a brief moment, illuminate characters we might otherwise pass by, unaware.’
To mark the tenth year of the Award, the BBC and Book Trust launched Student Choice, in which nearly 500 16-18 year old students from 20 schools around the UK cast their own votes on the shortlist. Student Choice aims to encourage young people to read high quality adult short stories and learn about a potentially new form. The Student Choice winner will be announced at the award ceremony on 6 October.
This year also sees the launch of the BBC Young Writers’ Award with Book Trust. Open to 14-18 year olds, the aim of this Award is to inspire and encourage the next generation of short story writers and is a cross-network collaboration between BBC Radio 4 and Radio 1. The winner of the Young Writers’ Award will also be announced on 6 October.
Book Trust Chief Executive, Diana Gerald says: ‘Working with the BBC on the National Short Story Award is a fantastic way to expose a huge audience to short stories; and also find new, young and enthusiastic writers and readers. So it’s particularly exciting this year – to coincide with the tenth anniversary – that we are expanding the Award even further by enlisting the help of 20 schools across the UK to also judge this year’s shortlist. We are looking forward to comparing their winning choice against the judges.’
Interviews with each of the shortlisted writers will be broadcast over five weekdays on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Front Row’ at 7.15pm from Friday 18 to Thursday 24 September 2015. Each writer’s story will be then be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 at 3.30pm on the following working day, from Monday 21 to Friday 25 September 2015. Each story will also be available as a free download from the day of broadcast for 30 days at www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/nssa.
From 16 September, an anthology – The BBC National Short Story Award 2015 – introduced by Allan Little and published by Comma Press will be available at www.commapress.co.uk and all good bookshops, and as an e-book at www.amazon.co.uk/kindle.
And as Radio 4 celebrates the new shortlist there will also be a chance to hear last year’s five shortlisted stories at 2pm each day on Radio 4 Extra in the same week. Meanwhile, on BBC Arts - Books at the BBC www.bbc.co.uk/arts/sections/books-at-the-bbc, there will be links to a selection of popular stories broadcast across BBC Radio in the last few years – from William Trevor to Alice Munro, there are great examples of the finest contemporary writers in this genre and more ideas about where to look and listen for inspiration.
In Hilary Mantel’s ‘The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher’ a conventional middle-class setting is turned upside down when an intruder disguised as a plumber sets out to take a shot at the former Prime Minister.
