An Associated Press report:Stef Penney has won the US$49,000 the Costa Book of the Year Award for her first novel, The Tenderness of Wolves, after earlier winning the first-novel category. The book is a murder mystery set in Canada in 1867.
Penney, 37, says she suffers from agoraphobia after leaving university and could not travel to Canada to research the book. Instead, she studied maps and texts in the British Library, near her London home.
Now I had to look that up: agoraphobia - an anxiety disorder which primarily consists of the fear of experiencing a difficult or embarrassing situation from which the sufferer cannot escape … Agoraphobics may experience severe panic attacks in situations where they feel trapped, insecure, out of control, or too far from their personal comfort zone. (Wikipedia)
Hmmm … in those days when it didn't have a name for it, we would have been simply told to 'get a grip'.
The Costa Awards were known as the Whitbread Book Awards until last year and is Britain's longest-running literary competition. It was started in 1971. The awards are open to residents of Britain and the Republic of Ireland.
Tash Aw won the last Whitbread for best new novel.
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