Commonwealth Writers Prize 2004 Winner Judges’ comments: ‘This book speaks to our age and its entropy. The story moves with the converging lives of a middle-aged Midlands woman, declining into bewilderment, and an “illegal” who flees to England from the appalling violence of his homeland. The everyday and the appalling walk hand in hand, with utter conviction. A heartbreaking novel,A Distant Shore asks whether civilisation can possibly survive.’