Annal:1982 Whitbread Book Award for First Novel
From AwardAnnals
Results of the Whitbread Book Award in the year 1982. For a ranked list of books, try an honor roll:
- 1982 JT Black-Fiction winner
- 1982 Whitbread-1st Novel winner
- Score: 20.32
Bruce Chatwin’s fascination with nomads and wanderlust represents itself in reverse in On the Black Hill, a tale of two brothers (identical twins) who never go anywhere. They stay in the farmhouse on the English-Welsh border where they were born, tilling the rough soil and sleeping in the same bed, touched only occasionally by the advance of the 20th century. Smacking of a Welsh Ethan Frome, Chatwin evokes the lonely tragedies of farm life, and above all the vibrant land of Wales.
