An author from Derry has won a prestigious American literary award from Yale University for his nonfiction writing.
Darran Anderson, whose work includes the 2020 'Inventory' recalling his childhood growing up in the city during the Troubles, is one of eight authors from around the world to be recognised in this year's Windham-Campbell Prizes.
The Derry man said his first reaction to finding out he had won was "holy ****, is this real?"
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Established at Yale in 2011 with the first prizes made in 2013, the award offers prizes for fiction, nonfiction, poetry and drama.
Of the news he had won the nonfiction award, Darran Anderson said: "My initial response was 'Holy ****! Is this real?' or, to put it more diplomatically, 'I'm surprised, grateful, and slightly dazed at this very welcome and generous news.”
His writing includes his debut 'Imaginary Cities: A Tour of Dream Cities, Nightmare Cities, and Everywhere in Between' published in 2015, and 'Inventory' in 2020.
His memoir about growing up in poverty in Derry during the Troubles, Inventory, tells the story of his childhood through a series of objects.
Imaginary Cities, meanwhile, is a work of creative nonfiction that looks at both real and imagined cities from around the world and throughout history.
A spokesperson for Windham-Campbell Prizes said: "Irish essayist, journalist, and memoirist Darran Anderson is recognised for his writing at the intersections of culture, politics, urbanism, and technology, including his dazzling debut Imaginary Cities: A Tour of Dream Cities, Nightmare Cities, and Everywhere in Between (2015), a hugely ambitious omnivorous analysis of real and imagined cities throughout history."
The 2023 selection committee citation for the Derry man is: "With divinatory attention, Darran Anderson gives voice to the testimony of objects and geographies, chronicling the passage of individual memory as it turns into a community's archive and sustaining myth."
The winners for fiction were Percival Everett and Ling Ma from the United States, with Darran Anderson and Susan Williams from London picking up the nonfiction prizes.
Dominique Morisseau from the USA and Jasmine Lee-Jones won the prizes for drama, while Alexis Pauline Gumbs from the United States and dg nanouk okpik of Iñupiaq-Inuit origin claimed the honours in the poetry category.
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