‘The Bee Sting’ wins Nero Book Prize

The Bee Sting by Paul Murray (Hamish Hamilton) has won the overall Nero Book Prize, worth £30,000 (A$57,684).

Murray’s novel was chosen unanimously as the winner by a judging panel chaired by Bernardine Evaristo from four category winners, which also included The Swifts (Beth Lincoln, illus by Claire Powell, Puffin), Close to Home (Michael Magee, Hamish Hamilton) and Strong Female Character (Fern Brady, Brazen).

Said Evaristo: ‘This is a wonderfully ambitious and entrancing novel about a family imploding against a background of Ireland’s economic and social crisis of the late noughties. Suspenseful and linguistically astonishing, The Bee Sting is written with great wit and humanity, with a cast of complex characters who are held back by their past, mired in the present and longing for a different future. Paul Murray is a supremely gifted storyteller as we learn of unspoken secrets and desires in difficult and sometimes dangerous situations, in a rich, multi-layered novel that is both epic and intimate in scale.’

The Nero Book Awards are open to books by writers based in the UK and Ireland, and they are administered by the Booksellers Association (BA). More information about the awards is available on the website.

Category: International news