{"id":6198,"date":"2023-11-19T16:05:06","date_gmt":"2023-11-19T16:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nerobookawards.com\/dummylocation\/?page_id=6198"},"modified":"2024-02-25T14:53:01","modified_gmt":"2024-02-25T14:53:01","slug":"michael-magee","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/nerobookawards.com\/dummylocation\/michael-magee\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Magee – Close To Home"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\nABOUT<\/font><\/span>
THE BOOK<\/span>
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2023 CATEGORY WINNER – DEBUT FICTION <\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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CLOSE TO HOME
BY MICHAEL MAGEE<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

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Sean is back in Belfast after university. He is the first in his family to attend, but the life-changing opportunities his degree promised have not materialised: he can\u2019t find a job, he\u2019s living hand to mouth and when he assaults a stranger at a party one night, his hopes for a different kind of life are jeopardised forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Told from Sean\u2019s perspective and written in Belfast dialect, Close to Home<\/em> immerses readers in Nationalist, working class Belfast life where the collective, generational trauma of \u2018The Troubles\u2019 still casts its shadow, and poverty and addiction feel as permanent as the mountains visible from Sean\u2019s window.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Intense and urgent, Sean\u2019s deadpan humour and McGee\u2019s tenderness for his characters cut through the bleak circumstances to offer hope and redemption. Close to Home<\/em> is strongly rooted in a particular place and time but Sean\u2019s attempts to make sense of how and even if he still belongs in the community that raised him, and to discover what it means to be a man, are themes that resonate across cultures. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Want to know more? We\u2019ve created a reading guide for this book \u2013 just click here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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MICHAEL MAGEE<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Michael Magee is the fiction editor of the Tangerine<\/em> and a graduate of the creative writing PhD programme at Queen\u2019s University, Belfast. His writing has appeared in Winter Papers, The Stinging Fly, The Lifeboat <\/em>and The 32: The Anthology of Irish Working-Class Voices. Close to Hom<\/em>e was shortlisted for the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize 2023 and won the Rooney Prize for Literature 2023. Michael lives in Belfast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photography \u00a9 Aashfaria A. Anwar<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018What sets this apart is the voice, which perfectly evokes a character and a community straining so hard against the systemic clamps of poverty, disillusionment, and ennui that the effort crackles off the page.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2023 Debut Fiction judges<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sara Collins<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hattie Crisell<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tom Robinson<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Other books shortlisted in this category<\/strong>:<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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THE FIVE SORROWFUL
MYSTERIES OF ANDY AFRICA
BY STEPHEN BUORO<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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THE NEW LIFE
BY TOM CREWE<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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SUNBURN
BY CHLOE MICHELLE HOWARTH<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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