Congratulations to Christie Watson whose novel Tiny Sunbirds Far Away has won the Costa First Novel Award meaning she is in the running for the overall prize to be announced on the 24th of January.
You can read our excellent interview with the author on the Quercus Couch.
We’re all thrilled for Christie – she’s an amazing writer… so, do please go and check out our brilliant interactive flipbook to read more.
You can also watch a video of Christie discussing the novel below:
A thoroughly deserved win for an amazing novel. We’ve all got our fingers crossed for the 24th!
Today, 25 November, International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women
Today: Worldwide, violence is the main cause of death and disability in women aged 15 to 44.
Life expectancy for women in Sierra Leone is 42.
Two thirds of the 774 million adult illiterates worldwide are women – the same proportion for the past 20 years.
More than 60 million girls worldwide are forced into marriage before the age of 18.
An estimated 3 million girls are estimated to be at risk of female genital mutilation/cutting each year.
PREGNANCY KILLS ONE WOMAN EVERY MINUTE
Almost all of these deaths are preventable.
Today, it is safer to be a soldier than a woman in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Today, it is estimated that over 40 million girls and women are ‘missing’ in China
In Britain:
Two women are killed every week by violent partners or ex-partners.
60,000 women are raped in Britain every year – the majority by partners or men they know – and only a tiny fraction, around one in ten, report it to the police. Of these few cases, less than 7% result in conviction.
Up to seven thousand girls are at risk of female genital mutilation every year.
Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away is the story of a family. It explores themes of violence against women, and how, as human beings, this affects all of us.
It is for all of these reasons and many more that I choose to write about violence against women.
It is for all these reasons that I support The International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, Today, November 25th 2011
Blessing and her brother Ezikiel adore their larger-than-life father, their glamorous mother and their comfortable life in Lagos. But all that changes when their father leaves them for another woman.
Their mother is fired from her job at the Royal Imperial Hotel – only married women can work there – and soon they have to quit their air-conditioned apartment to go and live with their grandparents in a compound in the Niger Delta. Adapting to life with a poor countryside family is a shock beyond measure after their privileged upbringing in Lagos.
Told in Blessing’s own beguiling voice, Tiny Sunbirds Far Away shows how some families can survive almost anything. At times hilarious, always poignant, occasionally tragic, it is peopled with characters you will never forget.
A paediatric nurse and first-time novelist has found herself competing against the likes of Booker winner Julian Barnes for a prestigious literary prize.
Christie Watson, author of Tiny Sunbirds Far Away, is one of 21 writers shortlisted for this year’s Costa Book Awards, which has also shortlisted Barnes and the Poet Laureate, Carole Ann Duffy…
Christie Watson has found herself pitted against literary heavyweights after being shortlisted for a Costa prize for her first novel, Tiny Sunbirds Far Away which she wrote while on maternity leave
Ms Watson, a 35-year-old mother of three, grew up on a council estate in Hertfordshire and left school at 16 with no A-levels.
She took a job at Great Ormond Street Hospital and Guy’s Hospital until she left to have a baby – and decided to use her maternity leave to fulfill her dream of writing a book.
The story, about a young girl catapulted from her comfortable city life into a poverty-stricken rural existence, draws on the Nigerian heritage of Ms Watson’s own children – she is married to a paediatrician from Lagos) for its context.
A nurse who spent more than 10 years on the wards of Great Ormond Street children’s hospital has been propelled on to one of fiction’s most prestigious shortlists only three years after quitting her job to study creative writing.
Christie Watson, 35, who overcame a crisis of confidence on her way to writing her first book, has been shortlisted for the £5,000 2011 Costa First Novel Award for Tiny Sunbirds Far Away, which was published in March.
An intensive care nurse at Great Ormond Street children’s hospital in London will compete for one of the UK’s biggest literary prizes after her debut novel was shortlisted in the Costa book awards.
Christie Watson, who has been a nurse for 18 years, is nominated in the first book category of a prize that unashamedly rewards what judges believe are the most “enjoyable” books of the year.
We’re all thrilled for Christie – she’s an amazing writer… so, do please go and check out our amazing interactive flipbook to read more.
Following on from yesterday’s amazing interview with Tiny Sunbirds Far Away author, and Costa First Book Award nominee Christie Watson, we thought we’d share an extract from this remarkable novel.
Centred around Blessing a twelve-year-old girl whose life is in upheaval and set in the Niger Delta, Tiny Sunbirds Far Away is a beautiful and poignant story of the the most difficult circumstatnces a family can overcome :
