Tindal Street Press Christmas review of 2011
Wednesday, 22nd December 2010
2010 has been another busy year of prize success for Tindal Street Press.
In January, Beauty, Raphael Selbourne’s debut focusing on a clash of cultures won the Costa Prize for First Novel. This is the second time we’ve had a Costa First Novel winner, and that success was shortly followed by the McKitterick Prize in June, presented at the Society of Authors awards night. Maria Allen’s historical mystery Before the Earthquake was shortlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize. This is the second year running we have had two authors, Maria and Raphael this time, on the Desmond Elliott longlist, a prize that’s becoming increasingly prestigious .
It’s been a busy year for appearances at literary festivals too, with authors invited to Hay and Edinburgh, to name only two of the biggest. Fiona Shaw read with Booker-shortlisted Emma Donoghue in Edinburgh, and Lesley Glaister performed in her home city. Anthony Cartwright, as well as Edinburgh, featured in the fashionable music festival, Latitude, in Southwold, Suffolk. Raphael was adept at answering questions in Scotland and in the packed tents of Hay. He has certainly been a busy author this year, when he was invited on a British Council trip to China, along with Catherine O’Flynn. His photo taken on the Great Wall of China seemed a world away from the Wolverhampton depicted in Beauty.
A little bit of Tindal Street history was marked by the launch at the Ikon Gallery in September of You Don’t Have to Say by Alan Beard. This was his long-awaited follow-up to the first book ever produced by Tindal Street Press. He’s a short story specialist so the collection gathered together stories written since 1997 and was well reviewed in the Times and Guardian.
Catherine O’Flynn published her new novel, The News Where You Are, which is set to be a Channel 4 TV Book Club choice in February early next year. And Tindal Street Press will be publishing a new edition of her superb, multi-prize-winning debut What Was Lost with a brand new cover in May 2011.
It was also the year Sir Michael Lyons, Chair of BBC Trust, became non-executive Chair of the Board of Tindal Street Press. And at a time of public funding cuts, it was when we joined forces on sales and distribution with Atlantic Books, a high performing London publisher, whose successes have included Aravinda Adiga’s Man Booker-winner White Tiger.
We’re certainly looking forward to another exciting year ahead, with more titles than ever being published in 2011.
