The dynamic between Rebecca and Edie is even more complex. And then he returns.Įdie likes to be hit, punched, hurt. The edginess goes up a notch when Edie loses her publishing job, finds herself homeless and, unknown to Eric who is out of town at a work conference, is invited to stay with Rebecca and Akila in their lavish suburban home. Akila is Eric and Rebecca’s young adopted daughter. His wife Rebecca knows all about Edie, and she insists on a set of written rules for them to conduct their affair by. Edie is also an artist, a painter who suffers from that common affliction amongst creatives: a debilitating lack of self-belief.Įric is a 40-something affluent white man in an open marriage. She has had sex with many of her colleagues (“the best part of the job”), from the IT guy to the contracts guy, the sales guy, the mailroom guy, to the head of the art department. Those are the words Edie uses to describe herself. The only other black person in her department is Aria “which forces a comparison between us that never favors me.” Edie has great breasts, her salary is very low, she has trouble making friends and men lose interest when she talks. In her early 20s, Edie is working in a low-level editorial job at a New York publishing house. Luster is an original, darkly funny debut about an interracial love triangle, by a new voice with the power to turn modern manners upside down and inside out.Įdie is having online sex with Eric, a man she met on a dating app who messages her with impeccable punctuation – she has a good feeling about him “based on his liberal use of the semi-colon”. Previous Dylan Thomas prize winners include Bryan Washington, Guy Gunaratne and Max Porter.“ This is a book of pure fineness, exceptional.” Diana Evans, Guardian Leilani, who was also longlisted for this year’s Women’s prize, was announced as winner in a virtual ceremony on Thursday night. Leilani is an astonishingly original new voice,” said Gokhale.

This is an important, uncomfortable book, by turns funny and angry, and always compelling. The narrator Edie’s incisive eye for all registers of racist bias is unblinking and masterly.

She described Luster – which was chosen by Barack Obama as one of his favourite books of last year – as “an accomplished and fearless novel that carries the ache, uncertainty and vulnerability as well as the harsh reality of being a young black woman in America. After many conversations and long deliberations, the jury unanimously decided on Luster,” said Gokhale. “It was a difficult decision as we had an exceptionally brilliant shortlist – all the books were potential winners. Leilani’s debut “stood out for the compelling narrative voice, and the unblinking quality of the writing,” said chair of judges Namita Gokhale, who, with her fellow judges, selected Luster from a shortlist which also featured Kate Elizabeth Russell’s My Dark Vanessa, and Akwaeke Emezi’s The Death of Vivek Oji.

Leilani raven