BY NIGHT she worked as a waitress in a restaurant in London; by day she struggled to write her first novel. Yesterday that book was shortlisted for one of Britain’s biggest literary awards.

Rachel Zadok has been nominated for the £25,000 Whitbread Book Awards, alongside such established writers as Nick Hornby, Salman Rushdie and Geraldine McCaughrean.

Zadok, 33, trained as a graphic designer and started writing only four years ago, when she came from Johannesburg to live in London with her husband, a doctor. Working as a waitress in a restaurant-bar in Herne Hill, South London, en-abled her to write. She found a publisher after she watched the Richard & Judy show on Channel 4 and heard them announce a literary competition.

She said: "I’m very superstitious. The day I found out about the competition I was having a really bad day writing. The book was at a difficult point. Eventually I gave up and did something I think is death to anyone who works from home: I turned on the TV.

"Richard and Judy were on and they were announcing the ‘How to get published’ competition. To someone as superstitious as me, that’s a sign, so I took down the details and sent something off."

She submitted a sample chapter — as did 46,000 other hopefuls — and found herself among five finalists. Although she did not win, her writing so impressed Pan Macmillan that it took on the novel.

Gem Squash Tokoloshe, about a young girl growing up during the height of apartheid unrest in South Africa, has now been recognised by the Whitbread judges for its "lithe and imaginative" prose and its powerful evocation of a child’s-eye view of rural South Africa.

The judges said: "Zadok sets the private drama of a collapsing household against the backdrop of a changing nation and creates a tangible atmosphere of menace."

On hearing the news, Zadok said: "I’m absolutely amazed."

The Whitbread Awards, which were instituted in 1971, have five categories: Novel, First Novel, Biography, Poetry, and Children’s Book. They recognise "the most enjoyable books of last year" by writers based in Britain and Ireland.

The category winners, who each receive £5,000, will be announced on January 4. The winner of the £25,000 Book of the Year will be announced on January 24. The judges include the broadcaster John Humphrys, the author Margaret Drabble and the comedy writer and performer Arabella Weir.

Rushdie has been chosen for Shalimar the Clown, although it failed to make it from the Man Booker Prize’s longlist to the shortlist this year.

Other shortlisted books include Alexander Masters’s Stuart: A Life Backwards, the life story of a drifter the author met while working at a Cambridge day centre for the homeless. The judges said that the book was "brilliantly crafted, endlessly funny and heartbreaking".

ON THE SHORTLIST

NOVEL AWARD

Nick Hornby
A Long Way Down — Viking

Salman Rushdie
Shalimar The Clown — Jonathan Cape

Ali Smith
The Accidental — Hamish Hamilton

Christopher Wilson
The Ballad of Lee Cotton — Little, Brown

FIRST NOVEL AWARD

Tash Aw
The Harmony Silk Factory — Harper Perennial

Diana Evans
26a — Chatto & Windus

Peter Hobbs
The Short Day Dying — Faber and Faber

Rachel Zadok
Gem Squash Tokoloshe — Pan Macmillan

BIOGRAPHY AWARD

Nigel Farndale
Haw-Haw — Macmillan

Richard Mabey
Nature Cure — Chatto & Windus

Alexander Masters
Stuart: A Life Backwards — Fourth Estate

Hilary Spurling
Matisse The Master — Hamish Hamilton

POETRY AWARD

David Harsent
Legion — Faber and Faber

Christopher Logue
Cold Calls —- Faber and Faber

Richard Price
Lucky Day — Carcanet

Jane Yeh
Marabou — Carcanet

CHILDREN’S BOOK AWARD

Frank Cottrell Boyce
Framed — Macmillan

Geraldine McCaughrean
The White Darkness — Oxford University Press

Hilary McKay
Permanent Rose — Hodder Headline

Kate Thompson
The New Policeman — The Bodley Head

Click here to read reviews of shortlisted books

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