Carlos Acosta, an award-winning ballet star attracted the Waterstone with his first novel, Pig's Foot.
The British bookseller announced eleven books as this year's most promising fictions, which were chosen from 100 authors from around the world.
In an interview with BBC, Acosta said he was very surprised to be nominated Waterstone Eleven and expressed that still he was not a writer but a dancer.
"I'm a dancer. I'm not going to pretend to be a writer. I mean, I can maybe tell a story for you to have fun, and slide through this story and these characters and this world I've created. But I'm never going to be Gabriel Garcia Marquez or people who do something to push the boundaries of literature. They did it from when they were young. They write to live," he shared.
The story of the 39-year-old dancer was set in 19th century Cuba, when the war between the Cuban and the Spanish was.
It is the following book of his autobiography, No Way Home published 2007. The dancer said it was one thing writing about him and another to invent a whole world.
"I think my writing and ballet complement each other quite well. I've been doing ballet all my life and by the writing I can disappear, I can fly away somewhere and disconnect from my daily routine," he told the Guardian.
The book was originally written in Spanish and is being translated by Frank Wynne who won awards for English translations.
BBC asked if he had any plan for a sequel and Acosta answered, "No, no, no. I have a one-year-old daughter. No time to sleep, no time to write. But in the future, maybe. Who knows? We'll see."
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