AFTER selling books at Blackwell’s author Daisy Johnson has won the Oxford retailer’s Book of the Year prize.
Ms Johnson, 28, has won the accolade for Man Booker-shortlisted novel Everything Under.
The youngest author ever to be shortlisted for the Man Booker, she scooped the Blackwell’s award three years after working for the company’s flagship Broad Street store.
The award is voted for by all the company’s shop and online booksellers from a shortlist of four category winners, with voting ‘overwhelmingly in favour of Everything Under, Blackwell’s said.
The book follows an isolated lexicographer who spent her teens in foster care, and turns classical mythology on its head.
Ms Johnson worked in Blackwell’s Oxford store in Broad Street from 2012 and 2015, when she landed a two-book deal with Cape which included a collection of short stories, Fen, published in 2017.
She told The Bookseller: “I started working at Blackwell’s when I moved to Oxford and it was the first place that felt like home in the city. There is no better place. Their support for Everything Under really has blown me away.”
The store’s senior bookseller Harriet Ware revealed the team is delighted with their ex-colleague’s win.
“Daisy was here for a couple of years and was a really friendly bookseller.”
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