Journalist and author Sophie Elmhirst’s Maurice and Maralyn: An Extraordinary True Story of Shipwreck, Survival and Love (Chatto & Windus) has been named as the overall winner of the Nero Gold Prize, beating out three other titles in contention for the prize.
The book is a retelling of a true story, and was described by chair of judges Bill Bryson as “an enthralling, engrossing story of survival and the resilience of the human spirit”. It follows a couple whose boat is struck by a whale while they are sailing for New Zealand, leaving them shipwrecked in the Pacific Ocean.
Bryson, who judges the prize alongside Bernardine Evaristo and Emily Maitlis, announced the winner at a ceremony in central London.
“Maurice and Maralyn is an enthralling, engrossing story of survival and the resilience of the human spirit,” Bryson said. “Impressively novelistic in its narrative approach, it is a gripping retelling of a true but forgotten story. It is a story of a marriage as much as of an adventure at sea, one that subtly explores the dynamics of a relationship under the greatest imaginable stress.”
Bryson added: “Sophie Elmhirst’s writing is understated but powerful, immersing the reader intimately in the unfolding drama and the horror of struggling to survive against the odds with very few resources. We unanimously agreed that Maurice and Maralyn is a non-fiction work that reaches the highest literary eminence, and we are delighted to announce it as the Nero Gold Prize 2024 Book of the Year.”
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