Today, the Authors’ Club announces the longlist for the annual Best First Novel Award, now in its 72nd year.
The longlisted books are as follows:
Rupert Dastur Cloudless (Fig Tree)
Christina Fonthes Where You Go, I Will Go (Tinder Press)
Connor Hutchinson Dead Lucky (Corsair)
Rowe Irvin Life Cycle of a Moth (Canongate)
Gurnaik Johal Saraswati, Serpent’s Tail (Profile Books)
Julia Kelly The Fisherman’s Gift, (Harvill Secker)
Sanam Mahloudji The Persians (4th Estate)
Michael Pedersen Muckle Flugga (Faber)
Thomas Peermohamed Lambert Shibboleth (Europa Editions)
Xenobe Purvis, The Hounding (Hutchinson Heinemann)
Anthony Shapland A Room Above a Shop (Granta Books)
Lucy Steeds The Artist (John Murray)
Lucy Popescu (chair of the judging panel) commented: “We are delighted to reveal a longlist of twelve outstanding debut novels. They explore a range of themes including family secrets and hidden lives, obsession and desire, displacement and survival, environmental threat and the search for belonging. Alongside these affecting inner journeys, the books move through diverse settings from England to France, from Wales to Scotland’s northern shores, and from India to former Zaire and Iran.”
Key Dates
Shortlist announcement: Monday 23 March
Event for shortlisted writers, National Liberal Club, Thursday 30 April
The winner will be announced at a dinner at the National Liberal Club: Wednesday 20 May
About the Prize:
The winning novel will be selected by this year’s guest adjudicator, the biographer, historian, and journalist Anne Sebba 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 2025. 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 72nd 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, Laura Beatty, Anthony Quinn, Kevin Barry, Ros Barber, Hisayo Rowan Buchanan, Gail Honeyman, Guy Gunaratne, Claire Adam, Ingrid Persaud, Tish Delaney, Ayanna Lloyd Banwo and Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow. Last year’s prize was awarded to Ferdia Lennon.
Past adjudicators have included Tracy Chevalier, Samira Ahmed, Louisa Young, Alex Wheatle, 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 135 years.
Contact: lucyjpop@gmail.com