Hay Festival Book of the Year 2023

After hundreds had their say, we're delighted to reveal our Hay Festival Book of the Year 2023 is... Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver.

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

An epic tale of love, loss, and everything in between, Demon Copperhead follows the story of Demon, a young boy born to a teenage mother in the southern Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, at the heart of the modern opioid crisis. A reimagining of Dickens’ David Copperfield, the novel charts Demon’s journey to adulthood and efforts to transcend the challenges around him.  

Winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction and Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Demon Copperhead is the ninth novel from Barbara Kingsolver, the global prize-winning and bestselling author whose other works include Unsheltered, Flight Behaviour, The Lacuna and The Poisonwood Bible, as well as books of poetry, essays and creative non-fiction. She has been translated into more than thirty languages and has earned literary awards and a devoted readership at home and abroad.

A bestseller at our spring event, Demon Copperhead was nominated again and again by readers. We are delighted to celebrate it as our Book of the Year.

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