Costa Book of the Year Awards: Hannah Lowe’s The Kids and the previous winners to read
Wrapping up the Costa Book Awards for another year, former London teacher Hannah Lowe has won the £30,000 prize for her book of sonnets, The Kids.
The collection of poems draws upon her experiences teaching in an inner-city London sixth form, with the judges saying it was a “book to fall in love with.”
Now in its 50th year, the Costa awards is one of the most prestigious literary prizes in the UK and honours the most enjoyable titles from the last year by writers in Britain and Ireland. The awards span five categories – debut, biography, poetry, children’s and novel – with one of the five chosen tomes then crowned the overall winner.
This year’s winning Costa Book of the Year was said by the judges to be “insightful”, “empathetic”, “generous”, “funny”, “compassionate” and “uplifting”. Lowe’s collection of poetry fought off fierce competition from titles including the bookies’ favourite novel Unsettled Ground by Claire Fuller (£7.49, Waterstones.com) as well as Caleb Azumah Nelson’s searing debut Open Water (£7.49, Waterstones.com).
To mark 2021’s winner, we take a look at The Kids and the four books that preceded Lowe’s win, all of which showcase the very best of the UK’s literary landscape.
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2021 winner: ‘The Kids’ by Hannah Lowe, published by Bloodaxe Books
Poet Hannah Lowe’s winning third collection of sonnets draws on a decade of experience teaching sixth-form students in an inner-city London school during the 2000s. Other verses in the tome take inspiration from her teenage years growing up in the Eighties and Nineties, as well as her own motherhood and experience of raising a small son in the nation’s capital. The judges praised it as a “page turner” that made them “want to punch the air with joy”. “It’s joyous, it’s warm and it’s completely universal,” the chair of judges, BBC News journalist and broadcaster Reeta Chakrabarti, said.
Buy now £9.54, Amazon.co.uk
2020 winner: ‘The Mermaid of Black Conch’ by Monique Roffey, published by Peepal Tree Press
Last year’s crowned book is based upon a Taino legend of a woman who transforms into a mermaid. Set on an imaginary Caribbean island called Black Conch, it tells the story of a fisherman, David, who while waiting for a catch, attracts an unexpected sea-dweller, Aycayia – a woman cursed to live as a mermaid by women jealous of her beauty. The moving mythical novel is pierced by a realism that touches on themes of loss, love, family and friendship.
Buy now £7.49, Waterstones.com
2019 winner: ‘The Volunteer: The True Story of the Resistance Hero who Infiltrated Auschwitz’ by Jack Fairweather, published by Ebury Publishing
This gripping work of non-fiction took the 2019 prize and recounts the incredible but almost forgotten story of Witold Pelecki during the Second World War. Tasked with uncovering the fate of thousands of people interned at Auschwitz, the Polish resistance agent entered the camp and his underground army began smuggling vital evidence of Nazi atrocities back to Allied forces. Told by former war reporter Jack Fairweather, the enthralling story of resistance helps to illuminate a hero while providing a new and important narrative of the Holocaust.
Buy now £9.29, Bookshop.org
2018 winner: ‘The Cut Out Girl: A Story of War and Family, Lost and Found’ by Bart van Es, published by Penguin Books Ltd
Part history, part memoir, Bart van Es explores his own family history and the moving account of a Jewish girl’s survival in the Netherlands during the Second World War. The poignant and haunting read explores the Nazi era as well as its lasting effects on those who lived through it.
Buy now £9.29, Bookshop.org
2017 winner: ‘Inside the Wave’ by Helen Dunmore, published by Bloodaxe Books Ltd
The second posthumous winner in the Costa prize’s history, poet and author Helen Dunmore’s Inside the Wave explores the writer’s terminal cancer diagnosis in the form of a collection of poems. Reflecting on her own life and her impending death, Dunmore offers a series of deeply moving and tender considerations on the ebbs and flows of life.
Buy now £9.95, Waterstones.com
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