Anne Michaels wins Best of the Orange Best 2010 prize
8th June 2010
Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels has been judged the best Orange Prize for Fiction winner for the 15 years the award has been running.
Michaels' book saw off a shortlist that included A Spell of Winter by Helen Dunmore and Linda Grant's When I Lived in Modern Times to win the Best of the Orange Best 2010 prize, which was assessed by a panel of six teenagers.
Andrea Levy's Small Island, On Beauty by Zadie Smith and Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun were the other titles in the running for the accolade.
In an interview with the BBC, Michaels said she wrote Fugitive Pieces to examine events and their consequences, how love can inspire or prevent action and the 'deepest responsibilities of memory'.
'That these questions have been embraced by the minds and hearts of young readers - the youth that is taking its place in the world - is utterly hopeful,' she added.
The last Best of the Orange Best was held in 2005 to mark the award's tenth anniversary and was won by Levy's Small Island.