Bromsgrove pupil winner of emagazine Close Reading Competition

07 Jun 2018

Congratulations to Bromsgrove School pupil Alia Derriey who is the winner of the emagazine Close Reading Competition 2018.  Entrants to the competition came from schools across the country who wrote confident, interesting and convincing analyses of a passage from The Impressionist by Hari Kunzru.

The competition was judged by John Mullan, Professor of English at University College, London, broadcaster and literary journalist and judge of the Man Booker Prize in 2009.  Professor Mullan said “The best responses managed to do justice to a lengthy passage in a short space by recognising its pattern of contrasts and parallels.  Several of the entrants have remembered that this is a passage from a novel, setting up tensions and uncertainties in the reader’s mind that will later have to be resolved”.

Commenting on the competition Alia said “I entered the emagazine Close Reading Competition after being encouraged by my English teacher. She suggested it as practice for the IB HL English course, as the tasks and skills involved are similar. I thought it would be useful, and a great opportunity to analyse ideas and language in a text that I might not have otherwise come across. The experience was valuable, and I put a lot of effort into my entry; I didn’t apply just to win. It was certainly a pleasant surprise to find out I had! I plan to donate my £150 prize money to the Book Trust, which funds reading support, helps families and designs books specifically for children with disabilities”.