Zoe Pilger's Eat My Heart Out in running for £10,000 book prize

A Goldsmiths, University of London student's darkly comic novel about love and feminism has reached the shortlist for the £10,000 Betty Trask Prize 2015.

Zoe Pilger, a PhD candidate based in the Department of Media and Communications at Goldsmiths and author of Eat My Heart Out, is one of four first-time novelists on a diverse shortlist.

The Betty Trask Prize is given annually to a debut novel of literary merit by an author under the age of 35. The winner receives £10,000 and will be announced at the Authors’ Awards ceremony on 25 June. The three runners up will also receive a Betty Trask Award, worth £5,000.

The judges this year are Mike Gayle, Peter Kemp and Michèle Roberts.

Both the Prize and Awards will be presented by Sarah Waters, herself a recipient of a Betty Trask Award in 1999 for Tipping the Velvet (Virago).

Zoe Pilger graduated with an MA in Comparative Literature from Goldsmiths in 2010 and also holds a BA in Social and Political Science from Cambridge (2007).  Her research at Goldsmiths considers the relationship between freedom and romantic love, and examines how romantic narratives express wider themes of power, ethics, and creativity.

Eat My Heart Out

Eat My Heart Out follows 23-year-old Londoner Ann-Marie. Heartbroken, broke and furious, she's convinced that love is the answer to all of her problems, until she meets legendary feminist Stephanie Haight, a woman who could be her saviour - or her final undoing.

"Pilger writes with such infectious rage... Not since Martin Amis's work can I remember a novel so exhilarated - and made so exhilarating - by its own sense of disgust." – James Walton, Daily Mail

"It's rare that a debut novel has the power to both make the reader laugh out loud and sigh with admiration, but Zoe Pilger's does just that." - The Press Association

"Pilger might be the heiress to Angela Carter." - Deborah Levy, The Independent

 

The 2015 Betty Trask Prize shortlist

BEN FERGUSSON - THE SPRING OF KASPER MEIER (Little, Brown)

EMMA HEALEY - ELIZABETH IS MISSING (Viking)

ZOE PILGER - EAT MY HEART OUT (Serpent’s Tail)

SIMON WROE - CHOP CHOP (Viking)

Visit the Society of Authors website for a full list of past winners.