New Writing

Three UEA alumni have been shortlisted for this year’s Costa Book Awards. Nominated for the Novel Award are Neel Mukherjee for The Lives of Others (Chatto & Windus) and Monique Roffey for House of Ashes (Simon and Schuster), while  Elizabeth is Missing (Viking) by Emma Healey is shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award. Neel graduated from the MA in Creative Writing (Prose Fiction) in 2001 and published his first novel, A Life Apart, in 2010, winning the Vodafone-Crossword Award and the Writers’ Guild Best Fiction Book Award. Earlier this year The Lives of Others was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction. Monique (pictured) graduated from the BA in English & American Studies in 1987 and published her first novel Sun Dog in 2002. Her second novel, The White Woman on the Green Bicycle, was shortlisted for the Orange Prize in 2010, while Archipelago, published in 2012, won the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature. Emma graduated from the MA in Creative Writing (Prose Fiction) in 2011 and published her first novel, Elizabeth is Missing, earlier this summer. This was longlisted for the 2014 International Dylan Thomas Prize and shortlisted for the Jarrold New Writing Award. Winners in the five categories of the Costa Book Awards will be announced on 5th January and will each receive £5,000, with the overall winner of the Costa Book of the Year receiving £30,000. The winners will be announced on 27th January 2015.