A Q&A WITH JOFFE BOOKS PRIZE WINNER SAM GENEVER

What did it mean for you to be the winner of Britain’s biggest crime prize, the Joffe Books Prize?

It was a complete surprise. I just thought they must be nice people to shortlist me, but when I won, it was a complete shock. 

Where were you when you found out you had won the prize?

In a hotel room in Johannesburg. I’d just landed at six that morning, and it was my first time back in South Africa for six years, so it was a blur and serendipitous. Afterwards, I wondered if it did actually happen or if it was a strange symptom of jetlag.

Please describe your book in three words.

Tense, dynamic, compelling.

What are you currently reading?

The Lagos Wife by Vanessa Walters and Cross Hairs by James Patterson and James O. Born.

What advice would you give to any aspiring writers?  

Keep writing. Take the advice of professionals but also go your own way.

What do you wish you’d known at the start of your own writing career?

That there are many ways to be a writer, and sometimes you have to be completely removed from it to see writing clearly.