Wolverhampton author shortlisted for Costa book award

Nov 25 2009 by William Oliphant, Birmingham Post

A Wolverhampton author has had his first book shortlisted for one of Britain’s most prestigious literary prizes.

Raphael Selbourne’s book Beauty, which follows the story of the eponymous hero, a young Bangladeshi woman from Wolverhampton, has been shortlisted for the First Novel Award at the Costa Book Awards.

It is the latest novel published by Birmingham’s Tindal Street Press to be nominated for a top prize.

Last year author Catherine O’Flynn from Birmingham won the First Novel Award for her novel What Was Lost, also published by Tindal Street Press.

Selbourne’s book follows the story of Beauty who is on the run from her family and an abusive arranged marriage. While spending time in job centres she finds a friend in Mark, a white ex-con working intermittently as a manual labourer.

Selbourne has said was inspired to write the novel by time he spent in a deprived area of Wolverhampton where he taught long-term unemployed and socially disadvantaged people.

He said part of his inspiration for the book came from the warm welcome he received from Bangladeshi families in an area where he had expected to be an outsider.

His book has been commended for re-examining terms including traditional terms such as “white”, “Asian”, “yob” and “toff”.

“I worked for several years with the long term unemployed, teaching maths and English as well as helping them find work,” he said.

“You can only write about worlds other than your own if you’ve had experience of them close at hand.”

Selbourne, who is the son of renowned historian and philosopher David Selbourne, was born in Oxfordshire but now lives in an area of Wolverhampton similar to the one described in the book.