The inaugural Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize winner for 2022 has been announced, and the winner is… The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty!
The Rabbit Hutch is set in a Rust Belt town that has fallen on hard times. It’s focused on an apartment for teenagers who are now too old for foster care. It focuses on four youths over the course of one week – each character searching for an escape, transcendence, and love.
Winning the award came with a cash prize of £5,000, along with “the promise of ongoing commitment” from the Waterstones bookshop. The other shortlisted novels included Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, Trespasses by Louise Kennedy, How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu, Vagabonds! by Eloghosa Osunde and Memphis by Tara M. Stringfellow.
The Debut Fiction Prize is not the only award presented by Waterstones. They also have Book of the Year and Children’s Book awards as well.
For those who are unfamiliar, Waterstones is a UK-based bookshop. It consists of 311 locations, most but not all in the UK. Tim Waterstone received a £6,000 redundancy payout from WHSmith, and used it to start up his own bookshop on Old Brompton Road in Kensington, London. He was looking to start something different from the UK bookshops, based on some ideas he got from American bookstores. Since then, it has been bought and sold a few times and is currently owned by A&NN Capital Fund Management.