Big Ron's autobiography
Rock Athlete won the
Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature on Friday night. Bit of a surprise for all of us, especially Ron who was quite literally speechless. Established in 1983, the BT Prize is presented by the Boardman Tasker Charitable Trust, which promotes literature by providing an award to authors of literary works, the central theme of which is concerned with mountains. It commemorates the lives of Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker – outstanding mountaineers and accomplished authors – who disappeared together high on Everest in 1982. It is given to the author or co-authors of an original work which has made an outstanding contribution to mountain literature. It's a pretty big deal, with both the Boardman and Tasker families, plus friends, still running the award.
L-R: Barry Imeson (Judge), Ed Douglas, Ron Fawcett, Ian Smith (Chair of Judges), Paul Tasker (Boardman Tasker Chairman). Photo:
henryiddon.com25 books were entered for this year's BT, and
5 were shortlisted. The other shortlisted titles include
Unjustifiable Risk by Simon Thompson, which charts the history of British climbing; and
No Way Down, New York Times reporter Graham Bowley's account of the 2008 K2 tragedy. The latter is an international bestseller.
The judges this year were Kym Martindale, Barry Imeson and - chair of the judges - Ian Smith, who said of Rock Athlete: 'This is an engaging portrait of an unassuming yet quite remarkable climber told with humility and frankness.'
Rock Athlete was ghostwritten by Ed Douglas, who said: 'It was a genuine shock to win, but also immensely gratifying. It caps what has been an unequivocally fun project to work on, one which I hope has done Ron justice.'
Previous winners include Joe Simpson with
Touching the Void in 1988; Andy Kirkpatrick with
Psychovertical in 2008; and two-time winner Paul Pritchard, with
Deep Play and the
Totem Pole in 1997 and 1999, respectively.
Naturally, we were stoked a bunch and syked to win. Word.
