Desmond Elliott Prize for new writers winner announced

The winner of the £10,000 Desmond Elliott Prize for new writers was announced tonight as Ali Shaw's The Girl with Glass Feet, published by Atlantic Books at £7.99.

Shaw has worked as a bookseller and at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, but now is writing full-time. The plot, inspired by Kafka's Metamorphosis, follows a girl who is slowly turning to glass from the feet up.

The other two shortlisted books were Before the Earthquake by Maria Allen and Talk of the Town by Jacob Polley.