A highly original and savagely funny novel that confronts the dark side of human nature, has won the first national ABC Fiction Award presented at a ceremony by Chairman of the ABC, Donald McDonald A.O.

The winner of the ABC Fiction Award is Brisbane-born William Elliott, a struggling 27-year old writer who has lived modestly for the past four years in order to focus his energies on writing.

Elliott wrote five manuscripts during this period and was on the brink of throwing in his writing career. Instead Elliott has won a $10,000 advance for his manuscript, “The Pilo Family Circus”, which will be published by ABC Books as a book, an audio book and broadcast across Australia on ABC Local Radio.

Beating close to 900 entries from around Australia, Elliott was chosen by a panel of four judges who said that his talent was outstanding. The judges were Delia Falconer, Richard Glover, Malcolm Knox and Jo MacKay.

Delia Falconer told radioinfo: “The Pilo Family Circus plunges the reader full-pelt into a world of comic book violence that is underpinned by a more sinister and ancient evil. When the hero Jamie is press-ganged into working for the Pilo circus as a clown with supernatural powers he has to face up to the dark side of his own human nature; and so, by inference, do we. William Elliott’s characters are bizarre and disturbing, his scenarios at times darkly funny.”