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Finnegan wins Sports Book of the Year Award for ‘Barbarian Days’

In the UK, US journalist and author William Finnegan has won the £28,000 (A$46,900) William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award for his surfing memoir, Barbarian Days (Little, Brown), reports the Guardian. The book, which was the winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction, charts the story of the author’s 20-year involvement in the sport. Judge John Inverdale said on behalf of the judges the decision to award the prize to Finnegan was unanimous. ‘People thought this was a genuinely extraordinary book, about life—about a certain kind of life,’ said Inverdale. ‘It’s a bit hedonistic. It’s a bit reckless. A lot of people will identify with it. A lot of people will envy it. If you read it with an open mind, you will realise what an amazing thing life is and having some kind of engagement and passion for sport enables you to live life to the full.’

 

Category: International news