Belfast author Lucy Caldwell wins prestigious Walter Scott Prize

Belfast writer Lucy Caldwell has won the Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction for her novel These Days.

The celebrated novelist, short story writer and playwright who was raised in the east of the city, took the £25,000 top prize for her story of love and loss during the Belfast Blitz in the midst of the Second World War.

Lucy, 42, was announced as the winner at the Borders Book Festival in Melrose.

The 2023 Walter Scott Prize judging panel, chaired by Katie Grant, comprised Elizabeth Buccleuch, James Holloway, Elizabeth Laird, James Naughtie, Saira Shah and Kirsty Wark.

They paised Caldwell’s wok for its "pitch-perfect, engrossing narrative ringing with emotional truth" and described it as a “story of both great violence and great tenderness”.

The author immsersed herself in eyewitness accounts of the Blitz while writing the work,and interviewed numerous survivors, including a 103-year-old.

Founded in 2009, the Walter Scott Prize has become one of Britain's most important literary awards with previous winners including bestseller Hilary Mantel, Sebastian Barry, Robert Harris, and Andrea Levy.

Lucy said winning the award was a "bit overwhelming".

She added: "One of my absolute favourite authors is Hilary Mantel, who was twice a recipient of this prize. She wrote some words that are on the cover of my hardback and I thought that was the greatest privilege of my writing life to have my name alongside hers on the cover.

"So to win a prize for historical fiction which she and so many other great writers have won in the past feels incredible."

Other novels on the shortlist were The Geometer Lobachevsky by Adrian Duncan, The Chosen by Elizabeth Lowry, Ancestry by Simon Mawer, I Am Not Your Eve by Devika Ponnambalam, Act of Oblivion by Robert Harris, and The Sun Walks Down by Fiona McFarlane.

In 2021 Lucy won the BBC National Short Story Award for "All the People Were Mean and Bad".

For more information on Lucy Caldwell click here.