WINNER of THE 2013 GORDON BURN PRIZE. 'Brilliant.' The Guardian.' PIG IRON is the story of a traveller who hasn't travelled; a young man fighting for his surname and his very survival. "They knew of the Wisdoms. Everyone did. Travellers and country folk alike. Some said they'd been cursed with the wickedness since the days of Cromwell. Said it had made them all crooked and wiley, and they weren't to be trusted. Said they had the violence running through those generations like a coal seem in the northern soil. Some born daft, some born sneaky, but all of them surly and tough as pig iron."