Prize for an Unpublished Manuscript by an Emerging Victorian Writer: Winner 2005

Judges report
I Hate Martin Amis et al by Peter Barry

In 1995, Milan Zorec, a failed, frustrated and disenfranchised writer travels from England to Sarajevo to take up a sniper’s rifle in Milosevic’s reign of ethnic cleansing. This is a slow-burning novel that lures you into its dark heart until it has you firmly in its grip. You need a strong stomach for this story. The central character is morally challenging and at times utterly hateful, but the book bores down into the centre of things – why we write, why we read, why we live. The insights into Zorec’s mind are chilling and offer frightening parallels with contemporary world events. This novel’s premise is compelling. It is blackly funny, confronting and often deeply disturbing.