"For my seventh birthday I was given a boxed set of the Narnia Books by CS Lewis. The last of them, The Last Battle had the words 'Winner of the Carnegie Medal' on it. I did not know what the Carnegie Medal was, but I knew it was something important.

It was the first literary award I had ever heard of. And if the Narnia books had won it, then it had to be the most important literary award there ever was.

Somewhere deep inside me, but not too deep, a seven-year old version of me is amazed and delighted that he's written a book that was given the most important literary award there ever was. And nothing you can say about Bookers or Nobels or Pulitzers will convince him otherwise."