Godspeed longlisted for Gordon Burn Prize 2020
We are thrilled to announce that Casey Legler's poetic, evocative memoir Godspeed has been longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize 2020. Now in its eighth year, the literary prize celebrates both fiction and non-fiction, rewarding works that stand out in the scale of their endeavour, often challenging readers’ expectations or pushing perceived boundaries of genre, sensibility or even the role of literature itself. A place on the longlist is reserved for the year’s boldest and most fearless works.
The shortlist will be announced later in the summer, before the prize itself is presented in a digital ceremony hosted by Durham Book Festival, a Durham County Council festival, on Thursday 15 October 2020. For more information click here.
Congratulations to Casey and the other longlisted authors!
Godspeed
‘I swim for every chance to get wasted — after every meet, every weekend, every travel trip. This is what I look forward to and what I tell no one: the burn of it down my throat, to my soul curled up in my lungs, the sharpest pain all over it — it seizes and stretches, becoming alive again, and is the only thing that makes sense.’
At fifteen, Casey Legler is already one of the fastest swimmers in the world. She is also an alcoholic, isolated from her family, and incapable of forming lasting connections with those around her.
Driven to compete at the highest levels, sent far away from home to train…
