''The Mermaid of Black Conch'' is the sixth novel by Monique Roffey, published in 2020.

Development

Roffey first conceived of the novel's mermaid during a 2013 trip to

Charlotteville Charlotteville is a village lying on the northeastern tip of Tobago on Man-o-War Bay. History The first European settlement on Man-o-War Bay was part of the colony of Nieuw Walcheren established by Jan de Moor, the burgomaster of Vlissingen in ...

Tobago Tobago () is an List of islands of Trinidad and Tobago, island and Regions and municipalities of Trinidad and Tobago, ward within the Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. It is located northeast of the larger island of Trini ...

. In 2019, Roffey launched a

Crowdfunder Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and alternative finance. In 2015, over was raised worldwide by cro ...

campaign to fund a publicity campaign for the novel. The novel was first published on 2 April 2020 by Peepal Tree Press. The rights were later acquired by

Vintage Publishing Vintage Books is a trade paperback publishing imprint (trade name), imprint of Penguin Random House originally established by Alfred A. Knopf in 1954. The company was purchased by Random House in April 1960, and a British division was set up in 1 ...

Reception

''The Mermaid of Black Conch'' won the 2020

Costa Book of the Year The Costa Book Awards were a set of annual literary awards recognising English-language books by writers based in UK and Ireland. Originally named the Whitbread Book Awards from 1971 to 2005 after its first sponsor, the Whitbread company, then ...

award. The novel was shortlisted for the 2020 Goldsmiths Prize, and longlisted for the 2021 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mermaid of Black Conch, The 2020 British novels English-language novels Mermaid novels Costa Book Award-winning works Fiction set in 1976 Peepal Tree Press books