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Alan Garner

Alan Garner

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Alan Garner was born in Cheshire in 1934 and grew up in Alderley Edge. In 2001, he was awarded an OBE for his services to literature

The achievements of Garner’s long and distinguished career have been recognised with numerous awards and honours. In 1968, he won the Guardian Award and the Carnegie Medal for The Owl Service (1967) - the first author to win both awards for the same book. He garnered the Phoenix Award in 1996 for The Stone Book Quartet (1976-1978), and his Elidor was a 1965 runner-up for the Carnegie medal. 

Garner was also awarded the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1970 for The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, First Prize at the Chicago International Film Festival for his film Images, which he wrote and presented, and the Karl Edward Wagner Award (for lifetime achievement) at the 2003 British Fantasy Awards. 

Alan Garner’s novel Treacle Walker was shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2022.

Main Photograph ©  C​hristopher Thomond/Guardian/eyevine

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Treacle Walker by Alan Garner

Reading Guide: Treacle Walker by Alan Garner

Explore Alan Garner’s Booker Prize 2022 shortlisted novel Treacle Walker with your book club using our guide and discover why the judges said it was ‘a mysterious, beautifully written and affecting glimpse into the deep work of being human’.

Treacle Walker by Alan Garner

An extract from Treacle Walker by Alan Garner

Read the first chapter of the latest fiction from a remarkable and enduring talent, which brilliantly illuminates an introspective young mind trying to make sense of the world around him. 

Watch our videos

Alan Garner answers readers' questions about 'Treacle Walker' | The Booker Prize

Jarvis Cocker reads from 'Treacle Walker' by Alan Garner | The Booker Prize

Jarvis Cocker reads a second extract from 'Treacle Walker' | The Booker Prize

The story so far: Joe Coppock, a solitary, partially-sighted child, explores the local countryside in a vivid dream

Garner bared to the bone in late style. This tiny book compresses all his themes – time, childhood, language, science and landscape entangled – into a single, calmly plaintive cry.

The 2022 judges on Treacle Walker

All nominated books

Treacle Walker by Alan Garner
This latest fiction from a remarkable and enduring talent brilliantly illuminates an introspective young mind trying to make sense of the world around him