The ‘ambition and depth’ of the Booker-shortlisted novel secures £10,000 award for the best second novel of the year
Neel Mukherjee’s story of a young man who is drawn into into extreme political activism in 1960s Calcutta, The Lives of Others, has won him the £10,000 Encore award for the year’s best second novel.
Already shortlisted for the Man Booker prize, where it missed out to Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North, and the Costa, Mukherjee’s novel “immensely impressed” judges with its “ambition and depth”, said chair of the panel Alex Clark. It beat second novels by authors including Will Wiles, Deborah Kay Davies and Amanda Coe to win the Encore, an award which was founded by Lucy Astor 25 years ago, and which has been won in the past by major names including Ali Smith, Anne Enright and Colm Tóibín.
Mukherjee, who lives in London, called the Encore “a burst of light in what is usually considered to be dark, damp, bleak territory – the dreaded second novel”, and said he was “thrilled by my good fortune and, looking at the list of past winners, both humbled and deeply honoured” to win.
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Already shortlisted for the Man Booker prize, where it missed out to Richard Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North, and the Costa, Mukherjee’s novel “immensely impressed” judges with its “ambition and depth”, said chair of the panel Alex Clark. It beat second novels by authors including Will Wiles, Deborah Kay Davies and Amanda Coe to win the Encore, an award which was founded by Lucy Astor 25 years ago, and which has been won in the past by major names including Ali Smith, Anne Enright and Colm Tóibín.
Mukherjee, who lives in London, called the Encore “a burst of light in what is usually considered to be dark, damp, bleak territory – the dreaded second novel”, and said he was “thrilled by my good fortune and, looking at the list of past winners, both humbled and deeply honoured” to win.
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