John O'Donoghue takes Mind Book of the Year honour
6th August 2010
Author and poet
John O'Donoghue has won the Mind Book of the Year 2010 for his
memoir Sectioned:
A Life Interrupted.
The mental health charity presented O'Donoghue with the award at
a recent ceremony held at the Royal Institute of British Architects
in central London.
Sectioned details the author's experiences of battling
depression, which started after the death of his father and saw him
spend more than ten years living in homeless hostels, mental health
facilities and the streets. He is now a lecturer in creative
writing at the University of Westminster and Open University.
Praising the memoir, judge panel member
Blake Morrison said: 'The humdrum reality of mental illness has
rarely been so well conveyed and it's less a story of locked wards
than of hostels, soup kitchens, sheltered housing and relentless
poverty.'
In winning the accolade, Sectioned saw off competition
from a shortlist that included
Loretta Loach's Devil's
Children, Voluntary
Madness by
Norah Vincent and
Richard Bentall's Doctoring
the Mind.
Last year, the Mind Book of the Year title was taken by British
journalist
Sathnam Sanghera for The Boy
With The Topknot.