Wood wins the award for fiction for his ‘utterly immersive’ novel Seascraper while Perry picks up the nonfiction prize for her memoir Death of an Ordinary Man
Booker-longlisted author Benjamin Wood has won this year’s Nero book award for fiction for his novel Seascraper.
Meanwhile, Claire Lynch won the debut fiction category for A Family Matter, and Sarah Perry’s Death of an Ordinary Man took the nonfiction prize. Jamila Gavin was awarded the children’s fiction prize for My Soul, A Shining Tree.
The Nero book awards, run by Caffè Nero, were launched in 2023 after Costa Coffee abruptly ended its book awards in June 2022. The prizes aim to point readers “of all ages and interests” towards the most outstanding books published in the UK and Ireland over the past year.
The winners will now compete for the Nero Gold prize, for the overall book of the year, set to be announced in March. Each of the four winning authors receives £5,000, with the overall prize carrying a further £30,000.
