2006 Costa Awards for Literature

THE RESULTS for the 2006 Costa Awards for Literature (formerly known as the Whitbread Prizes) have been announced and they are as follows:

Best Novel
Restless (Bloomsbury) / William Boyd

First Novel
The Tenderness of Wolves (Quercus) / Stef Penney

Biography
Keeping Mum (Atlantic Books) / Brian Thompson

Poetry
Letter to Patience (Seren) / John Haynes

Children’s Book
Set in Stone (David Fickling Books) / Linda Newbery

William Boyd first won the Whitbread First Novel Award in 1981 for his first novel, A Good Man in Africa (1981). Twenty-five years later, he has again won the Costa Novel Award (formerly the Whitbread Prize) for Restless, a tale of spies in wartime London. John Haynes, surprisingly, beat Nobel Prize-winner Seamus Heaney to take the Poetry Award with Letter to Patience, while newcomer Edinburgh-born Stef Penney secured the First Novel Award with The Tenderness of Wolves. The Children’s Award went to Linda Newbery with Set in Stone, beating such previous winners as David Almond and Meg Rosoff. The Biography Award was won by playwright and biographer Brian Thompson for Keeping Mum.

The overall winner of the £25,000 Costa Book of the Year Award will be announced on February 7, 2007.

Shortlist