Robin Robertson wins Goldsmiths prize for innovative fiction with The Long Take

Scottish poet wins £10,000 prize for his ‘narrative poem’ about a D-Day veteran in search of a home in postwar America

The Scottish poet Robin Robertson has won the Goldsmiths prize for the year’s most innovative fiction for his debut novel The Long Take, the story of a D-Day veteran written in a mix of verse and prose.

Robertson, who has won many awards for his poetry, turned to fiction to tell the story of Walker, a D-Day veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder who can’t return home to Nova Scotia after the war and searches for a new way of life in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

By the time you have finished reading The Long Take, you won’t quite be the same

Related: Robin Robertson and Andrew McMillan on sex, war and truth in poetry – books podcast