Oxblood: Winner of the Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award

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Benn’s book looks at the domestic lives of three generations of working-class women in 1980s Manchester and was selected from a shortlist of four writers, which included Katherine Rundell, Maddie Mortimer and Lucy Burns. If I read a better novel than OXBLOOD in 2022, it’ll be a blinding year for fiction. Tom Benn, please take a bow. Everybody else, please take note.’ – Joseph Knox, author of TRUE CRIME STORY and SIRENS The Dodds family once ruled Manchester’s underworld; now the men are dead, leaving three generations of women trapped in a house haunted by violence, harbouring an unregistered baby.

Oxblood is one of those rare books where place and time are conjured so effortlessly, the caste of characters are drawn with so much ease and grace… Tom Benn is a seriously gifted writer and I’m keen to read whatever he does next.‘The Dodds family once ruled Manchester's underworld; now the men are dead, leaving three generations of women trapped in a house haunted by violence, harbouring an unregistered baby. Francis Spufford: ‘I’ve always loved novels best as a reader, but for a long time I was too timid to take the plunge’ ] Which writers, living or dead, would you invite to your dream dinner party? His novel OXBLOOD was published in April 2022 and was longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize 2022 and the 2023 CWA Gold Dagger Award. He won the 2022 Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award. Bea Carvalho, Head of Fiction at Waterstones, said: “We are thrilled that Tom Benn has won this year’s Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award. Oxblood is fiction at its most urgent and affecting, and readers will be hugely grateful to discover it as a result of this well- deserved accolade. The award carries terrific prestige and Waterstones are proud to partner with the Sunday Times to reach as many new readers as possible.” A blistering portrait of a family on fire, Oxblood lays bare the horror of violence, the exile of grief, and the extraordinary redemptive powers of love.

Tom Benn certainly reveals the very darkest side of working class life on the estate but does so with writing that is engaging and beautiful, even when describing the depths to which humanity can sink.Oxblood is a propulsive, bountiful, fearless work of literary art. The female characters at the heart of Benn’s tale are single-minded, dogged and so completely convinced of themselves and their actions, that the reader is persuaded to be stirred by them and to remember them. It is clear that this is only the beginning for Tom Benn. His work is a vehicle for that rare unflinching look at our rawness, our brutality and our vulnerability.‘ Tom Benn has been announced as the winner of the Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer Award for Oxblood.

Thomas-Corr said: “Tom Benn is one of publishing’s best kept secrets. His story about the struggles of three generations of women in a Manchester crime clan has been rendered with care and specificity. The result is an atmospheric family saga that contains so much buried love, anger, grief, sexual jealousy and bitter disappointment.” Johanna Thomas-Corrsaid: ‘You can’t help but admire four young writers who have taken huge risks with style, subject and form and who have set themselves free of publishing conventions. All of them have taken on unpromising subjects and produced works of great beauty and generosity that refuse to be bent into shape. These are books that you can read again and again – and still feel rewarded.‘ Wythenshawe, South Manchester. 1985. The Dodds family once ruled Manchester's underworld; now the men are dead, leaving three generations of women trapped in a house haunted by violence, harbouring an unregistered baby and the ghost of a murdered lover. One good thing about judging a prize like this is that you approach a book without context or preconception and get to just plunge in. And Oxblood is a book to get lost headlong in. Tom Benn manages to be heart-felt and attentive and generous, without ever resorting to being sentimental. In fact this is a book of anti-sentimental greatness, wonderfully written, deft and pungent and sensuous. It is brave too, telling a tale without fear of ugliness, without seeking to smooth over the bumps of lived life at all. It is honest and truthful, but also a great feat of fiction. And he writes amazing female characters as well. It felt right to give him the prize not just as a reward for this massive achievement, but as a nod towards the novels he’s going to write in the future, which we have a feeling will be great.‘ Literary editor for The Sunday Times and judge Johanna Thomas-Corr said Benn is “one of publishing’s best kept secrets” and “his story about the struggles of three generations of women in a Manchester crime clan has been rendered with such care and specificity that it feels wholly original”.To me, genres are ever-evolving narrative frameworks that expose our fears and fantasies, offering writers trenchant tools to interrogate, repurpose and vandalise. We might turn to genre for comfort: to escape the tedium, uncertainty and injustice of reality; but genre can also confront these horrors, directly or askance, and say something troubling and truthful about them. What projects are you working on? The pregnancy was a mistake and the narrator immediately arranges a termination. But a gulf yawns between politics and personal experience. The polarised public debate and the broader cultural silence did not prepare her for the physical event or the emotional aftermath. She finds herself compulsively telling people about the abortion (and counting those who know), struggling at work and researching the procedure. She feels alone in her pain and confusion. a book to get lost headlong in. Tom Benn manages to be heart-felt and attentive and generous, without ever resorting to being sentimental..Wonderfully written, deft and pungent and sensuous. It is honest and truthful, but also a great feat of fiction -- STIG ABELL When I first moved to Norwich from Manchester at 18, I was dismissive of how small and slow the place seemed by comparison. But it’s a regional outlier innovating from the margins, welcoming and incubating talent from everywhere. Now I teach creative writing part-time at the University of East Anglia. It’s the city to hide out in and write books. What is your favourite quotation? I’ve been a pilgrim for art and film: visiting Den Bosch for Bosch’s paintings, and Poulsbo and North Bend [in] Washington for Twin Peaks. I’d love to reach Oxford, Mississippi, for a Faulkner pilgrimage. What is the best writing advice you have heard?

From Mary Gaitskill’s courageously nuanced personal essay, The Trouble with Following the Rules: “The truth may hurt, but in art, anyway, it also helps, sometimes profoundly.” A book to make me laugh?

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Rendered with such care and specificity that it feels wholly original...a rich, dark, atmospheric family saga that contains so much buried love and anger and grief and sexual jealousy and bitter disappointment. I emerged from it exhilarated' -- JOHANNA THOMAS-CORR For over 30 years, the UK’s most influential prize for young writers has been a definitive indicator of rising literary talent in Britain and Ireland, and Tom Benn joins an illustrious list of previous winners, including last year’s winner Cal Flyn, as well as Zadie Smith, Simon Armitage, Max Porter, Sally Rooney and Robert Macfarlane. Novelist and screenwriter Tom Benn, has been named winner of the 2022 Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award for Oxblood, a novel that judge Oyinkan Braithwaite called a ‘bountiful, fearless work of literary art’, daringly exploring masculine violence and fractured female agency through the domestic lives of three generations of working-class women in 1980s Manchester. To witness the mid-meal apocalypse: James Ellroy, Ishmael Reed, Zora Neale Hurston, Blaise Cendrars, Begum Rokeya, Marco Vassi, Alan Moore and Anna Kavan. The best and worst things about where you live?