patricia lockwood: American novelist Patricia Lockwood wins Dylan Thomas Prize

The acclaimed American novelist, essayist, and poet Patricia Lockwood has won the prestigious Dylan Thomas Award for her first novel, No One Is Talking About This. Also shortlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize and the 2021 Women’s Award for Fiction, Lockwood’s novel reveals its influence on modern day Internet culture and the personal psyche with boundless sensitivity and secretive humor.

Namita Gokhale, chair of the judges, hailed the work as “an important reflection of today’s online culture”, calling Lockwood a “deeply timely winner” and “the voice of a generation of new writers growing up under the constant pressure of real-time.” News and social media “.

“No one is talking about it. It’s an interesting and innovative take on the modern day Internet culture and the experience of family trauma in the modern world,” he said.

“The book’s flow of consciousness, almost like a diary in quality, the simultaneous isolation and the psychological impact that a ‘group think’ life has had on us as individuals online, has been extraordinarily adept at capturing. Decided as his first novel choice for the 2022 award. We can’t wait to see what comes next from this uncompromising talent, “Gokhale added.

“It’s a story about a life that lives in two parts. It’s about what happens when real life collides with the growing irrationality of a world accessed through a screen,” reads the blurb of “No One Is About This”.

“It’s about living in a world that has a lot of evidence of goodness, compassion and justice in the universe, and a flood of evidence to the contrary. It’s a meditation on love, language and human connection. The real voice of our time,” it adds.

Other titles shortlisted for the 2021 award, meanwhile, include Anuk Arudpragasam’s A Passage North, Nidhi Zak / Aria Ip’s Aguris of a Minor God, Nathan Harris’s The Sweetness of Water, and Open Water. Caleb Azumah Nelson, and Brandon Taylor’s Philithi Animals.