Today, the Authors’ Club announces the longlist for the annual Best First Novel Award. The longlisted books are as follows:
Sussie Anie To Fill a Yellow House (Phoenix Books)
Freya Berry The Dictator’s Wife (Headline Review)
James Cahill Tiepolo Blue, Sceptre (Hodder & Stoughton)
Paddy Crewe My Name is Yip (Doubleday)
Yasmin Cordery-Khan Edgware Road (Head of Zeus)
Cecilia Knapp Little Boxes (The Borough Press)
Ayanna Lloyd Banwo When We Were Birds (Hamish Hamilton)
Priscilla Morris Black Butterflies (Duckworth)
Sheena Patel I’m a Fan (Rough Trade Books)
Lizzie Pook Moonlight and the Pearler’s Daughter (Mantle)
Joanna Quinn The Whalebone Theatre (Fig Tree)
Emma Styles No Country for Girls (Sphere)
Lucy Popescu (chair of the judging panel) commented: “We are delighted to announce our longlist of twelve brilliant debut novelists tackling a fascinating diversity of subjects. These compelling novels explore art and privilege, war, loss, blackmail and theft as well as love, desire, obsession and the pursuit of power. We visit several UK locations and are transported to the American Frontier, Australia, Trinidad, Eastern Europe and Bosnia.
Key Dates
Shortlist announcement: 20 March
The winner will be announced at a dinner at the National Liberal Club: Wednesday 24 May
About the Prize:
The winning novel will be selected by guest adjudicator Louisa Young from a shortlist drawn up by a panel of Authors’ Club members, chaired by Lucy Popescu.
The prize is open to any debut novel written in English and published in the UK between 1 Jan and 31 Dec 2022. The prize of £2500 exists to support UK-based authors, publishers and agents, so the novel must originate in the UK and not have been published anywhere else in the world before its UK publication
Inaugurated in 1954, the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award is now in its 69th year, making it the longest-running UK prize for debut fiction and – except for the James Tait Black and the Hawthornden – the oldest literary prize in Britain.
Past winners have included Brian Moore, Alan Sillitoe, Paul Bailey, Gilbert Adair, Nadeem Aslam, Diran Adebayo, Jackie Kay, Susan Fletcher, Nicola Monaghan, Laura Beatty, Anthony Quinn, Jonathan Kemp, Kevin Barry, Ros Barber, Hisayo Rowan Buchanan, Gail Honeyman, Guy Gunaratne, Claire Adam and Ingrid Persaud. Last year’s prize was awarded to Tish Delaney.
Past adjudicators have included Alex Wheatle, Michele Roberts, Andrew Miller, Louise Doughty, AL Kennedy, Vikram Seth, Philip Hensher, Joanne Harris, Deborah Moggach and, going back further, Kingsley Amis and Compton Mackenzie.
About The Authors’ Club
Established by Walter Besant in 1891, the Club has provided a social meeting place for writers for 133 years.
Contact: lucyjpop@gmail.com