Warlight

"Any book beginning “In 1945 our parents went away and left us in the care of two men who may have been criminals” is off to a good start and, as we already know, Michael Ondaatje is a superb storyteller. But the Walter Scott Prize doesn’t take past glories into account. Warlight made the shortlist for the skill with which it paints the curious and sinister post-war reverberations most of us hardly think about, the London beyond the celebrations of VE day, the mopping up, as we might call it. Warlight is a book of mysteries shrouded in detail: life in the nether regions of a smart hotel; the watery byways of East London down which greyhounds are smuggled. And matching the mysteries are the people: the Moth, the Darter; Marsh Felon. It’s a book to read and re-read. Stories usually come before categorisations, so I don’t find it surprising that several of our shortlisted authors don’t think of themselves as historical novelists, particularly if, like Michael Ondaatje, you set your book within your own lifetime. Also, most novelists hate labels, so being stuck with another isn’t a very attractive prospect. The founders of the Walter Scott Prize understood this very well. By tagging it ‘a prize for historical fiction’, they elevate the genre without trapping the writer. I think this is why entries increase year on year, and why the Prize forges into its second decade confidently vigorous, hotly debated and a prize to gladden the hearts of the judges, and of the poet, verse-romancer, playwright, historian, ballad-collector and novelist after whom it’s named."