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Sarah Howe wins The Sunday Times/Peters Fraser & Dunlop Young Writer of the Year Award 2015

Posted on 10th December 2015 by Sally Campbell
Loop of Jade, a debut collection of poetry, has been announced this year's winner.

Sarah Howe has been named winner of the prestigious Sunday Times/Peters Fraser & Dunlop Young Writer of the Year Award for her extraordinary debut collection of poems, Loop of Jade.

Loop of Jade is a stunning, mesmeric work by an astonishing new talent. Half British, half Chinese, Howe was born in Hong Kong but moved to Britain as a small child; her autobiographical poems explore this dual nationality, detailing day-to-day epiphanies, little, yet pivotal moments in both her own, and her mother’s life.

The book has been described by The Scotsman as "a sinuous, shimmering, mirage-like debut collection...littered with... moments of sudden realisation, and also haunted by the suspicion that there must be more to everything than meets the eye."

Howe has been selected from an exceptional shortlist comprising four exciting new voices in British fiction; the other shortlisted books were Ben Fergusson's The Spring of Kasper Meier, Sunjeev Sahota's The Year of the Runaways  and Sara Taylor's The Shore.

Sarah Waters, an award judge and previous winner, said the short list was: “a wonderful line-up of books from four extremely talented writers. I think what’s particularly thrilling is the range of work on display here, as well as its quality.

"Each of these books confronts the complexities of life, but each has its own distinct style, its own energy. Collectively, they offer a very exciting snapshot of the literary scene.”

Loop of Jade has also been shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and Forward Prize for Best First Collection. 

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