Debut author Harriet Baker has won the £10,000 Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award for Rural Hours, a biography of Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Townsend Warner and Rosamond Lehmann.
Chair of judges, Johanna Thomas-Corr, said: “Harriet Baker’s Rural Hours has made me excited about literary criticism again. She has succeeded stunningly in her task of showing how transformative country life can be for a writer’s imagination. Every page of this quietly confident debut is inspiring, crafted as it is with deep intelligence and maturity of thought.”
In Rural Hours, Harriet Baker tells the story of three different women who moved to the countryside and were forever changed by it. Following long periods of creative uncertainty and private disappointment, each of Baker’s subjects are invigorated by new landscapes. In the country, they find their paths: to convalescence and recovery; to sexual and political awakening; and, above all, to personal freedom and creative flourishing.
Harriet Baker has written for the London Review of Books, Paris Review, New Statesman, TLS, Apollo and frieze. She read English at Oxford and holds a PhD from Queen Mary, University of London. In 2018, she was awarded the Biographers’ Club Tony Lothian Prize. Rural Hours is her first book.
The judges chose Harriet Baker from an exceptional shortlist of four authors, described by Johanna Thomas-Corr as “unforgettable new voices in fiction and non-fiction who possess thrilling potential.” Fast by the Horns (Wildfire), Moses McKenzie’s sophomore novel, is a sharp and lyrical exploration of Black immigrant life and Rastafari community in 1980s England; debut author Scott Preston was shortlisted for The Borrowed Hills (John Murray), a thrilling adventure steeped in folklore that reimagines the American Western for the fells of northern England; and poet and writer Ralf Webb, whose non-fiction debut Strange Relations (Sceptre), is an incisive investigation into the crisis of mid-century masculinity through the prism of four bisexual writers, American literary giants James Baldwin, Tennessee Williams, Carson McCullers and John Cheever.
For more than 30 years, the most influential prize for young writers in the UK and Ireland has been a definitive indicator of rising literary talent. Baker now joins recent winners Tom Crewe, Jay Bernard, Raymond Antrobus, Adam Weymouth, Sally Rooney, Max Porter and Sarah Howe. The prize has spotted and supported an exceptional line-up of defining new voices since returning from a 7-year break in 2015. Its alumni is a who’s who of the best in British and Irish writing, from Robert Macfarlane to Zadie Smith; from Sarah Waters and Naomi Alderman to Simon Armitage.
The announcement was made at a live ceremony in east London by Johanna Thomas-Corr, Chief Literary Critic for The Times and Sunday Times, Sebastian Faulks, Chair of the Charlotte Aitken Trust, alongside fellow judges, Desmond Elliot Prize alumna Claire Adam, Booker Prize shortlisted author Andrew Miller, celebrated poet Victoria Adukwei Bulley, author and journalist Tomiwa Owolade, and seasoned BBC broadcaster Justin Webb.
Judge Claire Adam said: “Rural Hours is an incredibly accomplished work – even more astonishing for being by an author so early in her career. Every time I returned to it, I admired more deeply Baker’s “quality of attention”, as she examines, in exquisite detail, the lives of these three women writers. A remarkable achievement.”
Judge Victoria Adukwei Bulley said: “Rural Hours is a book of rich and sustained attentiveness. It is an accomplished work of non-fiction whose authorial voice so subtly self-assured that its subjects come to life freely, vividly, and without imposition.”
Judge Andrew Miller said: “There was something about Rural Hours that got under our skin. Baker clearly cares deeply about the women she’s writing about but as a reader you don’t need any special fascination with them. The book’s true subject is something to do with creativity – a creative response to experience, the virtues of paying attention, the transformation of the everyday into art. I found it unexpectedly moving. Much biography seems to have the effect of making lives seem smaller. This one doesn’t.”
Judge Tomiwa Owolade said: “Rural Hours is that rare thing: a work of literary scholarship that is as readable as a novel. Harriet Baker elegantly and vividly evokes the pastoral lives and creative practices of Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Townsend Warner and Rosamond Lehmann.”
Judge Justin Webb said: “It was a glorious surprise, sparkling on every page. It informs but never lectures. it enthrals and amuses with a sureness of touch, of style, that leaves the reader disappointed when it comes to an end.”
Sponsored by the Charlotte Aitken Trust, the winner of the award received £10,000, as well as £1,000 for each of the shortlisted authors. Administered by the Society of Authors, the Young Writer of the Year Award works with a growing network of partners to provide a critical support system to the very best young talent at work. The winner will also receive two years’ membership to The London Library, while the remaining four shortlistees will all receive a year’s membership.
Waterstones began their partnerships with the award in 2022, and have continued to offer huge support for the shortlisted and winning titles, with in-store POS across the country, bespoke content across their platforms, bespoke blog content and exclusive competitions.
Bea Carvalho, Head of Books at Waterstones, said: ”Huge congratulations to Harriet Baker for winning this year’s Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award. The award carries significant influence and commercial promise, consistently boosting the profiles of its winners. We look forward to introducing Harriet’s wonderful book to readers far and wide following this well-deserved win.”
All four shortlisted authors spoke to former winner Zadie Smith at a special event at the Barbican Centre the night before the ceremony as part of a new partnership for the award. The British Council continue their partnership and will be advocating the shortlisted authors to international audiences and helping them to forge new literary connections overseas. Granta Magazine also continue their partnership with a series of extracts published online.