Fiction, With A Sense of Place: The Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards 2020

22nd December 2019

Fiction, With A Sense of Place: The Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards 2020.

I was delighted to be asked once again to be on the judging panel for The Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards 2020 – Fiction, With a Sense of Place. What a great category!

The books have all arrived and here are the 6 shortlisted titles, in no particular order:

• Little Faith by Nickolas Butler, set in Wisconsin
• The Pine Islands by Marion Poschmann, set in Japan
• Bangkok Wakes to Rain by Pitchaya Sudbanthad, set in Bangkok
• Love in No Man’s Land by Duo Ji Zhuo Ga, set in Tibet
• Sneguorchka by Judith Heneghan, set in Kiev
• The Parisian by Isabella Hammad, set in Palestine

It feels like quite a weighty responsibility to read all 6 within the given time frame of about 6 weeks. One of them in particular – The Parisian – is a hefty tome of c 550 pages, so that will certainly take more than its share of the time commitment!

You are not comparing like with like but looking for a real sense of place that exudes from the pages. It also has to be a convincing rendition, a feeling that the author really knows the layers of the location. Some books are clearly set in a specific locale but the essence doesn’t assail the senses. The little observations and quirks of a nation that draw a reader in, the specifics of smell, visual descriptions and just the feel of a place in words; all overlaid with a good story.

The criteria for Fiction, with a Sense of Place are:
A novel from any genre within fiction (populist or literary) with a highly developed and integral sense of a real location interwoven within the plot or narrative.

I guess each of the judges will have their favourite title(s) and the art is to formulate one’s opinions and share them with the other judges in a concise and constructive way. It’s a hard and challenging task but one that I really relish. It’s such  responsibility knowing that there can be only one winner (unless it’s the Booker Prize, in which case you choose 2 winners! 😉 ).

You now know how I will be spending at least some of the break over the festive season! The winner will be announced on the 26th February 2020.

Tina for the TripFiction Team

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