Benjamin Wood Seascraper review, recensie en informatie over de inhoud van de Engelse roman. Op 17 juli 2025 verschijnt bij Viking de nieuwe roman van de uit Engeland afkomstige schrijver Benjamin Wood. De roman is door de jury geselecteerd voor de longlist van de Booker Prize 2025. Een Nederlandse vertaling van de roman is niet verkrijgbaar.

Benjamin Wood Seascraper review en recensie

• “A quiet, unassuming book about honest work and modest dreams, about sons and their duty, and those brief, wonderful moments when we glimpse the possibility of living a different life. Benjamin Wood is a magnificent writer and I intend to read everything he has written.” (Douglas Stuart)
• “Wood is up there with the very best… he packs more poetry into his opening paragraph than many a Booker-winner achieves in their entire oeuvre.” (Johanna Thomas-Corr, The Times)
• “Seascraper shimmers, salt-flecked and rippling. It swells with tense, memorable moments… poignant, authentic and hopeful.” (Spectator)
• “Seascraper seems, at first, to be a beautifully described account of the working day of a young man, Thomas Flett, who works as a shanker in a north of England coastal town, scraping the Irish Sea shore for scrimps. And it is that: the details of the job and the physicality of the labour are wonderfully captured by Benjamin Wood. But this novel becomes much more than that. It’s a book about dreams, an exploration of class and family, a celebration of the power and the glory of music, a challenge to the limits of literary realism, and – stunningly – a love story.” (Booker Prize 2025 Jury)

Seascraper

• Auteur: Benjamin Wood (Engeland)
• Soort boek: Engelse roman
• Taal; Engels
• Uitgever: Viking
• Verschijnt: 17 juli 2025
• Omvang: 176 pagina’s
• Uitgave: gebonden boek / ebook / luisterboek
• Prijs: £ 14,99
• Shortlist Booker Prize 2025
• Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol / Libris

Flaptekst van de roman van Benjamin Wood

Thomas lives a slow, deliberate life with his mother in Longferry, working his grandpa’s trade as a shanker. He rises early to take his horse and cart to the grey, gloomy beach to scrape for shrimp, spending the afternoon selling his wares, trying to wash away the salt and scum, pining for Joan Wyeth down the street, and rehearsing songs on his guitar. At heart, he is a folk musician, but it remains a private dream.

When a striking visitor turns up, bringing the promise of Hollywood glamour, Thomas is shaken from the drudgery of his days and begins to see a different future. But how much of what the American claims is true, and how far can his inspiration carry Thomas?

Haunting and timeless, this is the story of a young man hemmed in by his circumstances, striving to achieve fulfilment far beyond the world he knows.

Benjamin Wood was born in 1981 and grew up in Merseyside. Seascraper is his fifth novel. his previous works have been shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, the Commonwealth Book Prize, the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, the RSL Encore Award ,the CWA Gold Dagger Award and the European Union Prize for Literature. In 2014, he won France’s Prix du Roman Fnac. He is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at King’s College, London, and lives in Surrey with his wife and sons.

Bijpassende boeken

• New English novels