Timothy Knatchbull wins Ewart-Biggs Award

The 2011 Ewart-Biggs Award has been won by Timothy Knatchbull for his memoir From a Clear Blue Sky: Surviving the Mountbatten Bomb.

Awarded in memory of Sir Christopher Ewart-Biggs, the former British ambassador to Ireland, the GBP 5,000 prize recognises work that 'promotes peace and reconciliation in Ireland'.

The novel recalls the assassinations of Knatchbull's grandfather Lord Mountbatten, his grandmother Lady Brabourne and his twin brother Nicholas and how he dealt with the tragedies.

On collecting the award, Knatchbull commented: 'The fact that it aims to promote peace and understanding and reconciliation is just a wonderful set of objectives. I will treasure this prize because it means more than any other prize I could imagine.'

In 2010, the Ewart-Biggs Award was won by David Park for The Truth Commissioner, described by The Times as 'an impressive, many-layered novel combining the hardest of realities with a measure of poetry and humanity'.