The HW Fisher Best First Biography Prize winner

The winner of this year's £5,000 HW Fisher Best First Biography Prize was Matthew Hollis for Now All Roads Lead to France: The Last Years of Edward Thomas, published by Faber. Speaking on behalf of the judges, Michael Prodger said: 'Matthew Hollis's Now All Roads Lead to France is not just an account of one of the First World War's less starry poets but of two worlds. The first is the febrile poetry world of the time, full of arguments, striving and intense friendships; the second is the world of creativity inside Thomas's head and just how the poems came about and were crafted. Hollis depicts both with extraordinary insight and in prose that is in the very best sense poetic.'