In a win for literary fiction amid declining sales, Sally Rooney's novel Normal People has been named Waterstones book of the year in 2018.
Rooney's second novel, which follows two young people falling in love in Ireland, has sold 41, 000 copies in hardback in the UK since it was released in August-five times the hardback sales of her 2017 debut, Conversations With Friends. At 27, Rooney is now the youngest winner of the award, which is given by the UK's biggest bookshop chain, Waterstones.
Normal People received almost universal applause upon its release. Longlisted for the Man Booker prize, the book won novel of the year at the An Post Irish book awards in November of 2018 and has also been shortlisted for the Costa novel of the year, announced in January of 2019.
The reader response toNormal Peoplehad been astonishing. As well as the universal praise, it has been a huge word- of-mouth (口头的) hit. There're customers returning to buy multiple copies as gifts.Normal Peoplestrengthened Sally Rooney's reputation as the voice of her generation and one of the most exciting novelists around today. Its success is atestamentto the health of literary fiction and indicates that there is still significant appetite for excellent storytelling.
The award, established in 2012, tends to go to books that are already bestsellers near Christmas. It has previously been won by the late American author John Williams'sStoner, the cookbookPolpoby Russell Norman, and last year's choice, Philip Pullman'sLa Belle Sauvage.
James Daunt, Waterstones' managing director, said Rooney's win was a sign of the healthy state of literary fiction, which has seen sales decrease over the last decade. "We are delighted to name it our book of the year," he said.
