July 7, 2010
Last night at the Arts Club, Ian Thomson won the 5th Dolman Travel Book of the Year, as well as a cheque for £2,500 to add to the Ondaatje Prize (£10,000) he received in May with his latest book The Dead Yard (published by Faber, 7th May 2009).
Described as “thorough and elegant” by The Daily Telegraph, “meticulously researched” by Time Out and “fascinating and frightening” by the Catholic Herald, The Dead Yard was chosen after an impassioned judges debate at Daunt Books, Marylebone, following an event to promote the award and the shortlisted authors.
Brett Wolstencroft, Co-Founder of Daunt Books and a Dolman judge commented:
“With a record number of travel books submitted it was an immense challenge to get over 70 titles down to a short list of 7. With such a high standard of entries the judges found it extremely difficult to select a winning title from the short list, however, in the end, the quality of writing in Ian Thomson’s ‘The Dead Yard’ turned the majority of the panel.” Brett Wolstencroft, Co-founder, Daunt Books
Travel writer Michael Jacobs, whose epic new book Andes (Granta, 6th May 2010) will undoubtedly be submitted for the 2011 Dolman Travel Book of the Year, presided throughout the award for the third and final time as the Chairman of Judges. Michael was unfortunately unable to attend the event himself on account of being in Bogota, talking about travel literature at one of South America’s leading literary festivals, the Malpensante – an occupational hazard for any award-winning travel writer.
Speaking from South America he said:
“Ian Thomson´s ‘The Dead Yard’, is not just a beautifully written and very rich account of a distant place, but also a book of vital importance for the understanding of a major element in contemporary British culture.”
The 2010 short listed titles (in alphabetical order) were:
Along the Enchanted Way by William Blacker (John Murray)
A Single Swallow by Horatio Clare (Chatto & Windus)
Eleven Minutes Late by Mathew Engel (Macmillan)
Lost and Found in Russia by Susan Richards (I B Tauris & Co)
Out of Steppe by Daniel Metcalfe (Hutchinson)
Tequila Oil: Getting Lost in Mexico by Hugh Thomson (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
The Dead Yard by Ian Thomson (Faber)
About the Dolman Travel Book of the Year Award
First launched in 2006, the Authors’ Club Dolman Best Travel Book Award is the only UK travel literature award, and has attracted top travel writers from the UK and from this year onwards those published in English translation by a UK publisher.
The prize looks for works of literary merit that show excellence in the tradition of great travel writing, combining a personal journey with the discovery or recovery of places, landscapes or peoples to instil a sense of place, excitement and wonder in the reader.
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