Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Graduate Daniel wins £10,000 for his first novel
DUNDEE University creative writing graduate Daniel Shand has been awarded one of the UK’s most prestigious prizes for a first novel.
Daniel, from Kirkcaldy, has won the Betty Trask Prize for his debut novel Fallow.
The £10,000 prize, awarded for a first novel of “outstanding literary merit” by an author under the age of 35, was presented at the Society of Authors’ annual ceremony in London.
Fallow tells of the relationship between two brothers bound by a terrible crime.
It is a tense and darkly comic thriller, lauded by fellow Scottish author Alan Warner as “a brilliant, unpredictable road novel”.
Daniel credits the University of Dundee’s MLitt in writing practice and study for setting him on the road to success.
He explained: “I am delighted and incredibly proud that Fallow was selected by the judging panel. “Dundee was where it all started. “Writing i n a workshop setting gave me the perfect foundation for my work.”
The news comes in the same week that fellow creative writing graduate Claire MacLeary has been shortlisted for the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish crime fiction.
Claire’s debut thriller Cross Purpose (published by Saraband/Caraband) has been longlisted for The McIlvanney Prize – the Scottish Crime Book of the Year 2017.
It joins books on the longlist by some of the biggest names in crime fiction, including Val McDermid and Ian Rankin.
Her novel, set in Aberdeen, features an unlikely crimefighting partnership of two middle-aged women and has been heralded as Scotland’s answer to Happy Valley.