- Royal Mail is celebrating
Richard Flanagan’s being named the winner of the 2014 Man Booker Prize
with a special postmark
- Richard Flanagan received the
prestigious award for his novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North from
HRH The Duchess of Cornwall at ceremony this evening
- The postmark will be printed on
millions on items of mail delivered nationwide from tomorrow to Saturday
- The postmark will say ‘‘Congratulations
to Richard Flanagan, winner of the 2014 Man Booker Prize.”
Royal Mail is to issue a special postmark to celebrate the winning
author of the 2014 Man Booker Prize for Fiction.
Richard Flanagan received the prestigious literary award for his novel The
Narrow Road to the Deep North last night HRH The Duchess of Cornwall, at a
ceremony at London’s Guildhall. The announcement was broadcast live by the BBC.
Mr Flanagan was one of six authors who were shortlisted for the prize.
Royal Mail’s postmark will appear on millions of items of mail delivered
nationwide from tomorrow to Saturday. It will say “Congratulations to Richard
Flanagan, winner of the 2014 Man Booker Prize.”
Andrew Hammond from Royal Mail, said: “We’re
delighted to be recognising Richard Flanagan’s fantastic achievement in winning
the 2014 Man Booker Prize with one of our special postmarks.
“We’re really pleased to share his success in winning this renowned
literary award with a postmark that will be delivered to addresses nationwide.”
The Narrow Road to the Deep North is a love story unfolding
over half a century between a doctor and his uncle’s wife. Taking its title
from one of the most famous books in Japanese literature, written by the great
haiku poet Basho, Mr Flanagan’s novel has as its heart one of the most infamous
episodes of Japanese history, the construction of the Thailand-Burma Death
Railway in World War II. In the despair of a Japanese POW camp on the Death
Railway, surgeon Dorrigo Evans is haunted by his love affair with his uncle’s
young wife two years earlier. Struggling to save the men under his command from
starvation, from cholera, from beatings, he receives a letter that will change
his life forever.
Born in Tasmania in July 1961, Richard
Flanagan is one of Australia’s leading novelists. His novels, Death of a
River Guide, The Sound of One Hand Clapping, Gould's Book of Fish
(winner of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize), The Unknown Terrorist and Wanting
have received numerous honours and been published in 26 countries. His
father, who died the day Flanagan finished The Narrow Road to the Deep North,
was a survivor of the Burma Death Railway. He lives in Tasmania.
Jonathan Taylor, Chair of the Booker Prize
Foundation, said: “We are delighted that the
foremost prize for literary fiction in English has received this splendid stamp
of approval from the Royal Mail.”
Winning
the £50,000 prize brings an author international recognition, not to mention a
dramatic increase in book sales. Former winners include Hilary Mantel,
Salman Rushdie,
Iris Murdoch,
Peter Carey and
JM Coetzee.
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