Lottie has won a set of ten Penguin paperbacks and a signed copy of 'Our Kind of Traitor', le Carré's most recent novel. She has also won a complete set of the Penguin Decades collection for the school library. Lottie's story was printed in the Daily Telegraph on Monday 16th May. You can read the full review here.
What the judges said about the competition: 'I'd like to congratulate all of the writers who entered the competition. To write a short story and create a whole world in just two thousand words is what some authors spend their whole lives trying to achieve. That you have been able to do this, with so much flair and imagination, and at such a depressingly young age, is extremely impressive.'
What John le Carré said at the Prize-Giving:“Write about what you know,” they tell you. But knowledge as raw material doesn’t help you if you can’t step back from it - and even if you can, have you really found a way to encode it and make it readable?
Well I think Lottie has done that. Why? Because - also uniquely among the submissions - she made herself the credible and affecting central character of her own story, and did it painfully and bravely, with self-irony, but without self-pity. The result is a piece of writing in which you can really taste the truth…. here at work is a real writer’s eye for the cumulative, dinning effect of detail. Here is a real writer’s voice, calling out to you from inside the cage. Lottie, it’s not quite time yet for you to be preparing your Nobel speech. But here, with my sincere congratulations and great hopes for your future, is your prize.'