Waitress Shortlisted for Whitbread Award
Posted on November 18, 2005
One of the finalists for the Whitbread Book Awards is a South African-born waitress named Rachel Zadok. Rachel, who is 33, had her novel published after she entered a writing competition run by a TV station. Her first novel is called Gem Squash Tokoloshe, which is about a young girl growing up in South Africa when apartheid was at its height.
Zadok, who grew up in Johannesburg but now works in London as a waitress, entered a writing competition run by Channel 4 television last year. Although she did not win, she was offered a book contract by publisher Pan Macmillan. The judges called "Gem Squash Tokoloshe" a "powerful evocation of a child's-eye view of rural South Africa."OK, it is a little misleading to declare that a waitress was short-listed for the Whitbread Book Awards. Lots of authors take odd jobs to pay the bills. But somehow it just sounds so inspiring that a 33 year-old waitress and first-time author is nominated for a Whitbread (although in a different category) with the likes of Nick Hornby and Salmon Rushdie."Rachel Zadok sets the private drama of a collapsing household against the backdrop of a changing nation and creates a tangible atmosphere of menace," they said. The first novel shortlist also includes "The Harmony Silk Factory," set in Tash Aw's native Malaysia in the 1930s and 1940s, and "26a," part fairy tale, part nightmare about twins and the tragedy of separation, by former dancer Diana Evans.
The fourth book in the category, Peter Hobbs' "The Short Day Dying," dramatizes the struggle of an individual to find reason in mortality and the divine. Whitbread prizes are awarded in five categories: novel, first novel, biography, poetry and children's book award. The winner in each group competes for the overall title of Whitbread Book of the Year, which carries a prize of $42,000.