In an unusual step, author Anna Burns thanks the housing charity Lewes District Churches Homelink and Newhaven Food Bank in the acknowledgements section of Milkman. The housing charity enables people in the Lewes District who are homeless, or risk homelessness, to access accommodation in the private rented sector. It provides an interest-free loan to people who have little or no savings and who are able to live independently in the private sector. In 2014 it helped Ms Burns with a loan to rent quiet accommodation in order to write - and has now been donated a copy of Milkman by the grateful writer. Meanwhile, Newhaven Food Bank, which is run by Sussex Community Development Association, has seen an approximate 100 per cent rise in the number of people using its service in the past year. Ms Burns was at one time unable to write because of excruciating back pain and struggling to make ends meet living peripatetically around England. She has taken home £50,000 for her Man Booker prize success with Milkman, a novel set in an unnamed city in Northern Ireland, telling the story of a young woman sexually harassed by a powerful man against the backdrop of The Troubles. It is published by Faber and Faber and priced at £7.99.
