J.O. Morgan and Bart van Es win 2018 Costa Book Awards

There were wins for two Penguin Random House UK authors at the 2018 Costa Book Awards, as announced on BBC Radio 4's Front Row last night (7 January). The Awards, one of the highlights of the literary calendar, are separated into five categories (First Novel, Novel, Biography, Poetry and Children's), with the winning books now nominated for the overall 2018 Costa Book of the Year.

J.O. Morgan wins the Costa Poetry Award, having previously been shortlisted for both The Forward Prize and the T S Elliot Prize. A war poem both historic and frighteningly topical, Assurances, published by Jonathan Cape, begins in the 1950s during a period of vigilance and dread in the middle of the Cold War: the long stand-off between nuclear powers, where the only defence was the threat of mutually assured destruction. 

Marking the win, the judges said: “We were all gripped by this polyphonic book-length poem and dazzled by its originality and inventiveness.”