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**Winner of the Goldsmiths Prize 2023**
**Shortlisted for the Winston Graham Historical Prize**
**Chosen as a book of the year 2023 by The Times, Guardian, Telegraph and New Statesman**

‘An epic the north has long deserved’ FINANCIAL TIMES
‘A sensational piece of storytelling … A singular and significant achievement’ GUARDIAN
‘Marvellous, artful, enchanted’ DAILY TELEGRAPH
‘Cements Myers’s standing as one of our finest, and most deftly imaginative, writers’ I NEWS

The triumphant new novel from the Walter Scott Prize-winning author of The Gallows Pole and The Offing

Cuddy is a bold and experimental retelling of the story of the hermit St. Cuthbert, unofficial patron saint of the North of England.

Incorporating poetry, prose, play, diary and real historical accounts to create a novel like no other, Cuddy straddles historical eras – from the first Christian-slaying Viking invaders of the holy island of Lindisfarne in the 8th century to a contemporary England defined by class and austerity.

Along the way we meet brewers and masons, archers and academics, monks and labourers, their visionary voices and stories echoing through their ancestors and down the ages.

And all the while at the centre sits Durham Cathedral and the lives of those who live and work around this place of pilgrimage – their dreams, desires, connections and communities.

Publisher Review

A writer of extraordinary and incandescent talent — ALEX PRESTON Here is a strong, spiritual writer who sees and loves every dewdrop, old oak, soft little animal and buried sword, and offers them up to us like the precious treasures they are * THE TIMES * No one writes about the atmosphere, beauty and brutality of the English countryside better than Benjamin Myers. And it’s hard to think of many people who can write with such attentiveness, tenderness and force about the importance of human connection and the redemptive power of art — WENDY ERSKINE One of the most interesting, restless writers of his generation * DAILY MAIL * No one writes about the atmosphere, beauty and brutality of the English countryside better than Ben Myers. And it’s hard to think of many people who can write with with such attentiveness, tenderness and force about the importance of human connection and the redemptive power of art — WENDY ERSKINE Shot through with a romantic, even mystical radicalism of the kind that William Blake would have approved of * DAILY TELEGRAPH * What a radical thing, these days, to have written a book so full of warmth and kindness … Gorgeous — MAX PORTER Benjamin Myers is fast making the contested boundary between history and folklore his own — JOHN MITCHINSON A powerful new voice * GUARDIAN * Book by book, over the past decade, Ben Myers has proved himself to be one of the most singular, moving and crucial voices of our times — DAVID PEACE A draft of cool, clear water … He’s such a good and brave writer * MONOCLE * Benjamin Myers is fast making the contested boundary between history and folklore his own — JOHN MITCHINSON