Mike Meginnis has won the inaugural Horatio Nelson Fiction Prize for his debut novel Fat Man and Little Boy. As the winner he earns a $5,000 cash prize, as well as a book deal with Black Balloon Publishing.
The new prize from Black Balloon Publishing is aimed at honoring books that invoke the spirit of Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson, “A one-eyed, one armed lunatic genius who never gave up…”. Here is more about the winning book:
Personifying the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan near the end of World War II, Meginnis has crafted a book unlike anything else we have read. As the brothers attempt to cope with the enormity of their pasts, and the reality that those pasts cannot be escaped, these symbols of death and destruction become beacons of longing, attracting an astounding array of characters, from Japanese farmers to black-market peddlers, an unhappy French wife, an American war widow, and a fortune teller, to name but a few.
The second Horatio Nelson Fiction Prize will accept submissions during the month of October. The award is open to unpublished original works of fiction of more than 50,000 words.