Author Sophie Elmhirst, winner of the Nero Gold Prize for her book, published by Penguin Random House UK / Vintage. Image: Nero Book Awards
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
An ‘Engrossing Story of Survival’
The United Kingdom’s awards machine continues to run in high gear with tonight’s (March 5) announcement that Sophie Elmhirst has won the Nero Gold Prize book of the year honor, which pays £30,000 (US$38,666).
Elmhirst’s work of narrative nonfiction Maurice and Maralyn: An Extraordinary True Story of Shipwreck, Survival, and Love becomes the 2024 overall winner of the top Nero honor, having bested three other titles in contention. The 2024 designation is not a typo. This is one of the awards programs that dates its top winner by the previous year, during which several stages of competition occur.
In this evening’s announcement event at central London’s Outernet, it was also announced that yet another award has been created. The Nero New Writers Prize has been established in concert with Brunel University to recognize unpublished writers.
The chair of the jurors for the win announced tonight is Bill Bryson, the American-British journalist and author. He was joined on the panel by author Bernardine Evaristo, president of the Royal Society of Literature, and Emily Maitlis, former lead news reader on BBC Two’s Newsnight.
Bill Bryson
Bryson, in making tonight’s announcement, said, “Maurice and Maralyn is an enthralling, engrossing story of survival and the resilience of the human spirit. Impressively novelistic in its narrative approach, it’s a gripping retelling of a true but forgotten story. It’s a story of a marriage as much as of an adventure at sea, one that subtly explores the dynamics of a relationship under the greatest imaginable stress.
“Shining through is the heroine’s courage and fortitude; as Maurice flounders, it is Maralyn’s strength that allows them to survive at sea for 118 days. The book is a tribute to Maralyn’s grit. Sophie Elmhirst’s writing is understated but powerful, immersing the reader intimately in the unfolding drama and the horror of struggling to survive against the odds with very few resources.
“We unanimously agreed that Maurice and Maralyn is a nonfiction work that reaches the highest literary eminence.”
Caffè Nero’s founding group CEO, Gerry Ford, is quoted tonight, saying, “It was an incredibly difficult decision for the judges as all four titles were worthy winners, but this extraordinary true tale of a couple shipwrecked at sea for 118 days is a story that will stay with readers for years to come.”
At a time when many awards programs are opening for submissions to writers from many parts of the world, the Nero describes itself as “the only set of multi-category awards open exclusively to writers based in the UK and Ireland.
Initially, the competition falls into four categories: fiction, nonfiction, debut fiction, and children’s fiction. The winners of those four categories then vie for the top honor, which Elmhirst has been awarded tonight.
More from Publishing Perspectives on book and publishing awards is here, more on nonfiction is here, and more on the United Kingdom’s book market is here.