Winner of the £10,000 Desmond Elliott Prize revealed

AK Blakemore’s novel The Manningtree Witches has won the £10,000 Desmond Elliott Prize.

Named after the literary agent and publisher Desmond Elliott, the annual award goes to a first novel written in English and published in the UK.

Blakemore’s book tells the story of a fatherless and husbandless woman living in the affluent village of Manningtree during the 17th century witch trials.

Lisa McInerney, who won the prize in 2016 and chaired this year’s judging panel, said: “The Manningtree Witches is a stunning achievement.

“Blakemore takes limited historical detail and, with what seems like effortless grace and imagination, crafts a breathing, complex world full of wrenchingly human characters, and tells us their stories in language that bears endless rereading, so clever and unexpected and pleasurable it is.”

National Centre for Writing programme director Peggy Hughes added: “In an extraordinary year to publish a debut novel, we nevertheless encountered a huge number of wonderful, ambitious, exciting new books.

“AK Blakemore’s The Manningtree Witches stood out from the crowd however, and we’re hugely excited to be able to support her career, and to see where her writing will take her – and us – next.”

Also shortlisted for the award were Rebecca Watson’s novel Little Scratch and Eley Williams’ The Liar’s Dictionary.

Last year’s prize was won by Derek Owusu’s That Reminds Me, which was published by Stormzy’s imprint #MerkyBooks.