Top literary prize for Lucy Caldwell novel based on Belfast Blitz

The prize was for her novel ‘These Days’ – a story about loss and love set during the aerial bombardment of her home city of Belfast during the Second World War.

Her win was announced at a public event last night with j udges describing her book as a “pitch-perfect, engrossing narrative ringing with emotional truth” and praised the story for its “great tende rness” amid “great viol ence”.

T he author immersed herself in eyewitness accounts of the Belfast B litz while writing , interviewing survivors and m i n i n g a rchiv e diaries .

She said: “These Days felt so alive to me as I wa s w r i ting it, so urgent – it didn’t fee l lik e ‘hist ory’ at all.”