Britain’s first Brexit novel, “Middle England” by Jonathan Coe, won the £5,000 Costa book of the year award last night.
The book was the third novel featuring the characters from Coe’s 2001 novel The Rotters’ Club and 2004’s The Closed Circle,and follows the characters from the spring of 2010 to the autumn of 2018
“If people are serious about healing the country and bringing it back together, this [book] can help do that … More than anything I’ve read in newspapers or non-fiction, ‘Middle England’ helped me understand what has led people to vote to leave the EU,” judge and novelist John Boyne said last night after the award.
In the other categories, Sara Collins won best first novel for her gothic romance The Confessions of Frannie Langton, about the twisted love affair between a Jamaican maid and her French mistress in 19th Century London.
Welsh author and former war reporter Jack Fairweather’s biography of unsung war hero Witold Pilecki, who infiltrated Auschwitz, won the biography award; while Jasbinder Bilan’s first children’s novel Asha & the Spirit Bird was also among the winners.
