Ian McEwan wins Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction with Solar
Ian McEwan, an author perhaps better known for his award-winning literary fiction, been named winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction 2010 for his novel Solar. As winner of the prize he joins another Man Booker Prize winner, DBC Pierre, and a long list of comic greats including Will Self, Paul Torday, Marina Lewycka, Michael Frayn and Howard Jacobson.
The prize – which is the UK’s only prize for comic fiction, now in its 11th year – celebrates the novel of the last 12 months that has best captured the comic spirit of P.G. Wodehouse.
McEwan’s 11th book, Solar is a novel take on climate change and focuses on the ambitions and self-deceptions of Nobel prize-winning physicist Michael Beard, whose best days are long behind him. The Financial Times said of the book: “It is a stunningly accomplished work, possibly his best yet… the book does contain a truly shocking surprise – not that it deals with climate change, but that it is a comedy.”
David Campbell, judge and publisher of Everyman’s Library, comments on the choice of winner: “It was an easy unanimous decision by the judges. This is a brilliantly funny book, by a great writer.”
The winner is announced just ahead of a winner event at this year’s Guardian Hay Festival. At the event on Friday 28 May, Ian McEwan will speak about his winning book with Peter Florence, festival director and one of the judges of the prize, before receiving his prize: a jeroboam of Bollinger Special Cuvée, a case of Bollinger La Grande Année and a set of the Everyman Wodehouse collection.
As is tradition, McEwan will also be presented with a locally-bred Gloucestershire Old Spot pig, which will been named ‘Solar’ after the winning novel. Previous pigs have been less fortunate, with some christened A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, All Fun and Games until Somebody Loses an Eye and Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.
The judges for the 2010 prize were broadcaster and author, James Naughtie; Everyman publisher, David Campbell; and Director of the Guardian Hay Festival, Peter Florence.