A Scattering named 2009 Costa Book of the Year
27th January 2010
Christopher Reid has been announced as the winner of the 2009 Costa Book of the Year award for his poetry collection A Scattering.
Reid saw off competition from the award's individual category winners, which included Colm Toibin with Brooklyn, to take home a GBP 30,000 cheque at a ceremony at Quaglino's restaurant in central London.
The other category winners were The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius by Graham Farmelo, Patrick Ness' The Ask and the Answer and Beauty by Raphael Selbourne.
Josephine Hart, chair of the judges of the overall winner award, praised Reid's 'austere, beautiful and moving' book, which was written as a tribute to his wife Lucinda Gane, who died in 2005.
'Out of a personal tragedy, Christopher Reid has written a masterwork which has universal power,' she added.
A Scattering is the fifth poetry collection to be named the Costa Book of the Year, the last one being Seamus Heaney's Beowulf in 1999.
Earlier this month, Reid told the Daily Telegraph that there is an 'element of almost guilt' in achieving success with a book inspired by the most tragic episode of his life.