Acclaimed Alderley Edge author Alan Garner has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2022 for his latest novel Treacle Water.
Alan Garner, who was born in Cheshire in 1934 and grew up in Alderley Edge, is the oldest author ever to be nominated for the leading literary award.
The achievements of Garner's long and distinguished career have been recognised with numerous awards and honours. In 1968, he won the Guardian Award and the Carnegie Medal for The Owl Service (1967) - the first author to win both awards for the same book. He garnered the Phoenix Award in 1996 for The Stone Book Quartet (1976-1978), and his Elidor was a 1965 runner-up for the Carnegie medal.
Garner was also awarded the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1970 for The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, First Prize at the Chicago International Film Festival for his film Images, which he wrote and presented, and the Karl Edward Wagner Award (for lifetime achievement) at the 2003 British Fantasy Awards. In 2001, he was awarded an OBE for his services to literature.
Speaking about Treacle Walker, the 2022 judges said "Garner bared to the bone in late style. This tiny book compresses all his themes – time, childhood, language, science and landscape entangled – into a single, calmly plaintive cry."
The 2022 shortlist includes six books* which are 'set in different places at different times [and] are all about events that in some measure happen everywhere, and concern us all', according to Chair of judges Neil MacGregor.
The six authors represent five different nationalities and four continents, with an equal split of men and women on the list.
The winner will be announced at the Roundhouse in London on October 17th, which will be Alan Garner's 88th birthday.
Photo: Alan Garner, Treacle Walker credit David Heke.
*
Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo
The Trees by Percival Everett
Treacle Walker by Alan Garner
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
Oh William! byElizabeth Strout
