Today, the Authors’ Club announces the longlist for the annual Best First Novel Award, now in its 71st year.
The longlisted books are as follows:
Colin Barrett Wild Houses (Jonathan Cape)
Mark Bowles All My Precious Madness (Galley Beggar Press)
Kaliane Bradley The Ministry of Time (Sceptre)
Emily Howes The Painter’s Daughters (Phoenix)
Tom Lamont Going Home (Sceptre)
Ferdia Lennon Glorious Exploits (Fig Tree)
Phoebe McIntosh Dominoes (Chatto & Windus)
Tom Newlands Only Here, Only Now (Phoenix)
Scott Preston The Borrowed Hills (John Murray)
Varaidzo Manny and the Baby (Scribe)
Leo Vardiashvili Hard by a Great Forest (Bloomsbury)
Lai Wen Tiananmen Square (Swift Press)
Lucy Popescu (chair of the judging panel) commented: “We are delighted to announce our longlist of twelve brilliant debuts. The novels cover complex family dynamics, state repression, slavery, identity, prejudice and survival, ADHD, masculinity, loss and bereavement. These diverse and compelling narratives are utterly original and written with real flair and compassion.”
Key Dates
Shortlist announcement: Monday 24 March
Event for shortlisted writers, National Liberal Club, Wednesday 30 April
The winner will be announced at a dinner at the National Liberal Club: Weds 21 May
Cont…
About the Prize:
The winning novel will be selected by this year’s guest adjudicator, the novelist Tracy Chevalier, 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 2024. 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 71st 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 and Ayanna Lloyd Banwo. Last year’s prize was awarded to Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow.
Past adjudicators have included 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 134 years.
Contact: lucyjpop@gmail.com