Congratulations to Darwin alumna Dr Rachel Meller (PhD Neuroscience, 1974), whose book The Box with the Sunflower Clasp was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature’s Christopher Bland Prize.
The prize, for which five books were shortlisted, is intended to recognise a debut novelist or non-fiction writer first published in any form aged 50 or over. This year’s prize was judged by Josh Cohen, Niall Griffiths and Shaparak Khorsandi.
The Box with the Sunflower Clasp pieces together the life of Rachel’s aunt, Lisbeth, and her experience as a Jewish refugee in Shanghai, having fled 1930s Vienna. Rachel discussed the book, and how she came to write it, with the Darwinian magazine in January.
