Whitbread Book Awards honors ‘Accidental’

Sun., Jan. 8, 2006

Associated Press

Scottish writer Ali Smith’s “The Accidental” has been named novel of the year in Britain’s prestigious Whitbread Book Awards.

Smith, best known as a short-story writer, won the award for her first full-length novel, the tale of an enigmatic young woman who disturbs a family’s uneventful holiday in an English town.

Other finalists included Nick Hornby’s “A Long Way Down” and Salman Rushdie’s “Shalimar the Clown.”

The Whitbread prizes are awarded in five categories: novel, first novel, poetry, biography and children’s book. Each category winner receives $8,700.

One of the five will receive the $43,000 Whitbread Book of the Year Award on Jan. 24.

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