“Imaginative daring” wins literary gong

New Zealander Kirsty Gunn has won the Sundial Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year award, one of Scotland’s most esteemed literary prizes. Gunn, a professor of creative writing at Dundee University, received the honour for her acclaimed novella The Boy And The Sea. She was presented with a cheque for £25,000 by Sundial Properties managing director William Gray Muir at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. “I am delighted that the award has gone to Kirsty Gunn,” he said. “The Boy And The Sea is a truly remarkable book, with its poignant story drifting effortlessly between poetry and prose.” A spokesman for the judging panel described Gunn’s book as “a novella of consummate subtlety, imaginative daring and emotional intensity”. Kirsty Gunn is a graduate of the Victoria University of Wellington.