Autistic Author nominated for Booker Prize

Post Reply New Topic

A debut novelist whose work draws on her experience of being autistic has been longlisted for the Booker Prize.

Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow is one of three first-time novelists on a list that misses out superstar writers such as Zadie Smith and Sir Salman Rushdie.

Her book, All the Little Bird-Hearts, is written from the perspective of an autistic mother living in the Lake District.

Lloyd-Barlow has said that she found school difficult both socially and academically, although she loved reading. She left school with no qualifications but, after having her children, took an access course which led to her gaining a literature degree from the Open University.

Now with a PhD in creative writing, Lloyd-Barlow has presented her doctoral research on autism and literary narrative at Harvard University.

The judges praised her book as “a poetic debut which masterfully intertwines themes of familial love, friendship, class prejudice and trauma with psychological acuity and wit”.