THE ENCORE AWARD

The £10,000 Encore Award for a second novel has gone to Julia Leigh for Disquiet (Faber), the story of a woman leaving a violent marriage for her childhood home in France but confronting dark secrets from the past. Disquiet presented "a recognisable contemporary situation and an unfathomable abyss", said Lindsay Duguid, who judged the award with Alex Clark and Peter Parker.

Leigh won from the following shortlist:
Judy Corbalis - Mortmain (Chatto)
Eva Hoffman - Illuminations (Harvill Secker)
Panos Karnezis - The Birthday Party (Cape)
Julia Leigh - Disquiet (Faber)
Adam Mars-Jones - Pilcrow (Faber)
Sujit Saraf - The Peacock Throne (Sceptre)
Indra Sinha - Animal's People (Simon & Schuster

Disquiet is a spare, elliptical novel in which a woman returns with her children to her childhood home in rural France. A sense of mystery pervades the book as the baleful atmosphere of the decaying château is invaded by its New World visitors. A brilliantly distilled, disturbing glimpse into an abyss.
Julia Leigh lives in Sydney, Australia, and is the author of The Hunter, which was awarded a Betty Trask Award and the Prix de L’Astrolabe in 2001.

The Encore Award - now awarded biennially - was first awarded in 1990, and is admimistered by The Society of Authors.