De Tores wins 2024 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize

In the UK, Australian author Francesca de Tores has won the 2024 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize for Best Published Novel for her novel Saltblood (Bloomsbury).

De Tores’ novel charts the life of Mary Read, one of the few recorded female pirates during the 1700s ‘Golden Age of Piracy’, fictionalising her story and filling in the many gaps left by minimal historical reports.

This is the second year running that an Australian author has won the prize in this category; last year’s winner was Emma Styles for the outback noir No Country for Girls (Sphere).

Prize founder Niso Smith said of Saltblood: ‘De Tores has created a protagonist defiant of convention; a woman who, despite her start in life, transforms and learns to truly know herself. Saltblood is a triumph of imagination—breathtaking and boundless.’

With categories for published, unpublished and young writers, the prize is open to writers of any nationality writing in English and is based around the ethos ‘an adventure for everyone’.

This year’s judging panel included Styles, alongside writer and journalist Matt Barr, former mountain bike racer Lee Craigie, marine conservationist Alasdair Harris, and athlete and therapist Sarah Outen.

More information, including this year’s other winners, is available on the prize website.

Category: Awards Local news