Our congratulations to Damon Galgut for winning the 2021 Booker Prize. His book ‘The Promise’ charts the fall of a white South African family, living on a farm outside Pretoria. The younger generation detest everything the family stand for – not least the failed promise to the Black woman who has worked for them her whole life. After years of service, Salome was promised her own house, her own land… yet somehow, as each decade passes, that promise remains unfulfilled.
The Booker Prize announcement has led us to reflect on our 2021 Book series. It was a very successful year for BIF Festival speakers, with the following authors being nominated for, or winning, awards:
James Rebanks
English Pastoral: An Inheritance
Wainwright prize for nature writing
Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing
Michael Taylor
The Interest: How the British Establishment Resisted the Abolition of Slavery
Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing
Ben MacIntyre
Agent Sonya: The True Story of WW2’s Most Extraordinary Spy
Shortlisted for the ALCS Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction 2021.
Nick Hayes
Shortlisted for the ALCS Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction 2021.
Dr Waheed Arian
In the Wars: A Story of Conflict, Survival and Saving Lives
Named Best Doctor at the Sun’s Who Cares Wins awards
Nicola Upson
Gold Dagger 2021 Longlist
BIF’s Book Festival Director Vicky Dawson says “I couldn’t be more delighted for our award winning BIF attendees, all of whom contributed to very memorable events at this summer’s Festival. It’s very exciting to be gathering together our next programme of opinion forming and award winning writers for BIF 2022 and of course sprinkling that special Buxton fairy dust.”
Keep an eye out for the line up for the 2022 BIF Books series, which will be announced next spring.