OA's Novel Wins Popular Vote
OA's Novel Wins Popular Vote March 2008
Jonathan Trigell OA (1992) has just won another prize with his debut novel Boy A. The challenging novel about the rehabilitation of a violent child offender won the John Llewellyn Rhys prize in 2005 and has been announced as the winner of a public poll to choose the best ‘book to talk about’. As Jonathan commented to the BBC, “I always hoped Boy A would be a book people enjoyed talking about.” It reached the final shortlist of 10 on the World Book Day’s website and in voting during February it gained 21% of the votes to win the competition.
The book was filmed by Channel 4 and has been warmly received by critics. The New York Times called it ‘A shocker of a first novel... told with extraordinary restraint’, while The Good Book Guide commented that it was ‘a thought-provoking commentary on human nature... A gripping and disturbing read, Boy A is a carefully cultivated work that challenges readers while also being entirely gripping.’
Jonathan Trigell