Beauty wins Costa First Novel Award

London, 19.30pm 4th January 2010 Former scooter salesman Raphael Selbourne scoops the Costa First Novel Award for Beauty. Beauty – in name and appearance – is a twenty-year-old Bangladeshi, back in England having disgraced her family by fleeing an abusive arranged marriage. Placed on the jobseekers’ treadmill and under continuing domestic pressure, in desperation she …