An author who wrote a convention-defying novel in verse has scooped the £10,000 Goldsmiths Prize.
Robin Robertson’s The Long Take was announced as the winner of the 2018 prize at a ceremony at the Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art.
The book is the first novel from the acclaimed poet, and the first verse novel to win the Goldsmiths Prize.
#GoldsmithsPrize2018 nominee, Robin Robertson, reading from and talking about his shortlisted novel, The Long Take pic.twitter.com/Nw37nB50eD
— The Goldsmiths Prize (@GoldsmithsPrize) November 13, 2018
The Long Take explores post-war America in free verse mixed with typographical borrowings from street signs and text snatched from notebooks and journals, and is shot through with film noir imagery.
Judges chair Adam Mars-Jones, research professor of creative writing at Goldsmiths, said: “The judges are proud to salute Robin Robertson’s The Long Take, a film noir verse novel full of blinding sunlight and lingering shadows, technically accomplished, formally resourceful and emotionally unsparing.”
Only works by authors from the UK and Republic of Ireland are eligible for the Goldsmiths Prize, launched in association with the New Statesman in 2013.
It is committed to rewarding British and Irish fiction that breaks the mould or extends the possibilities of the novel form.
Robertson was brought up on the north-east coast of Scotland and now lives in London. He has published five collections of poetry and received honours including the EM Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and all three Forward Prizes.