The Butchers by UEA alumna Ruth Gilligan has been shortlisted for this year’s Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize, which is worth £10,000 for a distinguished work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry evoking the spirit of a place. The novel was published by Atlantic Books last year. Ruth was born in Dublin in 1988 and studied at Cambridge and Yale before coming to UEA. She graduated from the MA in Creative Writing (Prose Fiction) in 2011, and completed a PhD in English at Exeter in 2014. She currently teaches Creative Writing at the University of Birmingham. Ruth’s first novel, Forget, was published in 2006, and was followed by Somewhere in Between (2008) and Can You See Me? (2009). All three were bestsellers in Ireland. Her previous novel Nine Folds Make A Paper Swan was published in 2016 in the UK by Atlantic Books and in the USA by Tin House Books. Ruth writes and reviews for the TLS, the Guardian, the Irish Independent and the Irish Times. The winner of the RSL Ondaatje Prize will be announced on 11 May.
Ruth Gilligan shortlisted for RSL/Ondaatje Prize
