The recipient of the third TILA is Audree Magee for her novels The Colony and The Undertaking. As is customary, the announcement was made during the Cheltenham Literary Festival.
The sponsors of the award praised both her novels, The Undertaking, and The Colony, for “their strong and crystalline prose.”
“Both books deal with large subjects related to the exercise of power (war and colonisation) with clarity and precision of focus. There is no sentimentality, sensationalisation or judgment and she hits her marks with unerring aim. Her special talent seems to be using her journalistic objectivity to create distinctive fiction which is thought-provoking but also beautiful and immensely readable.
“The Undertaking is a brave and original examination of the brutalising effects of World War ll on ordinary German citizens, and shows how easily terrible moral capitulation can occur. In The Colony, a failing English painter and a French-Algerian linguist vie in their different ways for the souls of the villagers on a small remote Irish island which has thus far resisted the effects of colonisation.
“The two books appear short and deceptively simple to read but are, in truth, unforgettable. Audrey Magee is a great writer and deserves to be widely read and appreciated.”