Oxblood: Winner of the Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award

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When Victoria realizes something could be terribly wrong with her brother’s trip though, she gets on a plane and leaves for Italy even though it terrifies her. Once there she realizes how hard it is going to be to find Gil. She also meets a certain someone who ends up showing her a whole new world that she didn’t even know existed while at the same time finally giving her a purpose. The involvement of Franzen gives this entertaining translation of Brussig’s charming East German novel plenty of star quality. But you can see why the American was so keen to bring this superb slice of life behind the Berlin Wall to a wider audience. Written in 1999, each chapter from the point of view of teenager Michael, it is a pitch-perfect takedown of the totalitarian experience. A reminder that no matter the harshness of a situation, a community can still live with hope and humour. Oxblood

Admire the art over the artist, the work over the worker. People transgress and disappoint but art can transgress to transcend. Which public event affected you most? I went into this book with no expectations, I had never read anything by this author before and wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. I am so glad I did it this way. The prologue hooked me immediately I needed to know why she was in this situation and how in the world she was going to get out of it.

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Oxblood is one of those rare books where place and time are conjured so effortlessly, the caste of characters are drawn with so much ease and grace… Tom Benn is a seriously gifted writer and I’m keen to read whatever he does next.‘ Wythenshawe, South Manchester. 1985. The Dodds family once ruled Manchester's underworld; now the men are dead, leaving three generations of women trapped in a house haunted by violence, harbouring an unregistered baby and the ghost of a murdered lover. It’s about three generations of mothers in a crime family, living together in 1980s Wythenshawe, Manchester. The patriarchs are dead but their violent legacy traps these women together and also keeps them apart. I wanted to give expression to a place and an era, its moral canvas, and female perspectives. This meant I had to really take my time. It was rejected by two dozen publishers. What was their problem? Rendered with such care and specificity that it feels wholly original...a rich, dark, atmospheric family saga that contains so much buried love and anger and grief and sexual jealousy and bitter disappointment. I emerged from it exhilarated' -- JOHANNA THOMAS-CORR

A blistering portrait of a family on fire, Oxblood lays bare the horror of violence, the exile of grief, and the extraordinary redemptive powers of love.

“Oxblood is the Manchester I never knew but could still hear in echo”

She's really worried, so off to Italy she flies. Starting with the last hotel that he stayed in, she starts asking questions. To her surprise, she's greeted by a good looking man .. pointing a gun at her. Seems like he's looking for her brother, as well.

Oxblood is a landmark novel shifting the perspective on male violence towards the female experience of grief, love and resilience. Tom Benn is the winner of the 2022 Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award for his novel, Oxblood Martin DoyleTom Benn certainly reveals the very darkest side of working class life on the estate but does so with writing that is engaging and beautiful, even when describing the depths to which humanity can sink. I love YA thrillers and strong female characters, so when I saw this on NetGalley, I knew I had to take a look and see what it was about. One good thing about judging a prize like this is that you approach a book without context or preconception and get to just plunge in. And Oxblood is a book to get lost headlong in. Tom Benn manages to be heart-felt and attentive and generous, without ever resorting to being sentimental. In fact this is a book of anti-sentimental greatness, wonderfully written, deft and pungent and sensuous. It is brave too, telling a tale without fear of ugliness, without seeking to smooth over the bumps of lived life at all. It is honest and truthful, but also a great feat of fiction. And he writes amazing female characters as well. It felt right to give him the prize not just as a reward for this massive achievement, but as a nod towards the novels he’s going to write in the future, which we have a feeling will be great.‘

I don’t know what books will make you laugh but here are some that make me laugh: Kafka’s The Trial, Nathanael West’s Miss Lonelyhearts, Richard Price’s Ladies’ Man, Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood, and Philip Roth’s Sabbath’s Theater. Basically, any screwball tragedy or harrowingly absurd story in which characters confront their own shadows, or experience surreal, mundane or violent social hypocrisies. Whether the torment is a cosmic justice, self-inflicted or a persecution, experiencing the worst day in a fictional life is very funny to me. A book that might move me to tears? With that said, I enjoyed the story overall. I think it had a good amount of suspense and a few twists that I didn’t see coming, which was fun. Victoria is such a cool character, with her ability to adapt to situations, and I like that her skill in observation came in handy in her search for her brother. I hope that she grows more as the series continues and is able to get past the aren’t-I-such-a-sad-baby thing, because while she certainly has it tough, she also certainly loves lamenting over the fact that her life is tough. This one wasn’t a must-read for me, but I definitely can see people loving it for its constant stream of surprises. a book to get lost headlong in. Tom Benn manages to be heart-felt and attentive and generous, without ever resorting to being sentimental..Wonderfully written, deft and pungent and sensuous. It is honest and truthful, but also a great feat of fiction -- STIG ABELL A remarkable galvanization of a time and a place, its style and substance so rooted in one another it is impossible to imagine it being written by anyone else. A story that seeps into you, sentences turned to catch the light like night eyes. A living thing' -- DOMINIC NOLAN This was definitely a great story. I loved the action, suspense, non blood family, betrayal, lies, secrets , mystery, bravery, human trafficing, even a little romancebut so much more. The plot was excellantsome errors in grammer and spelling but an easy fix and didn’t detract from the story. I loved all the ins and outs from this awesome storyespecially those with Vic and I highly recommend.Novelist and screenwriter Tom Benn has been named winner of the 2022 Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award for Oxblood, a novel that judge Oyinkan Braithwaite called a ‘bountiful, fearless work of literary art’, daringly exploring masculine violence and fractured female agency through the domestic lives of three generations of working-class women in 1980s Manchester. My father was a police constable who was stationed at Longsight (and, for a time, at Benchill) and so, even though he would never have shared the reality of his job over the dinner table, as a teenager in the 60's I was savvy enough to sense some of what he was experiencing. Occasionally he would return home with his hand in plaster, after helping to beat a drunken Irishman into his cell. Congratulations, Tom, on winning the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. What does it mean to you? Francis Spufford: ‘I’ve always loved novels best as a reader, but for a long time I was too timid to take the plunge’ ] Which writers, living or dead, would you invite to your dream dinner party?