The shortlist for the Goldsmiths Prize is out! The award is to be given to the author whose fiction “breaks the mould or extends the possibilities of the novel form.”
The shortlist is as follows:
- Somebody Loves You by Mona Arshi
- Seven Steeples by Sara Baume
- Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies by Maddie Mortimer
- Peaces by Helen Oyeyemi
- there are more things by Yara Rodrigues Fowler
- Diego Garcia by Natasha Soobramanien and Luke Williams
Congratulations to all the nominees! The winner of the Goldsmiths Prize will receive £10,000 (approx. $10,000 USD). The winner will be announced November 10th.
This is the 10th annual award. It was founded in 2013 by Goldsmiths, University of London and New Statesman magazine. Only citizens of the United Kingdom and Ireland are eligible.
The award is different from many others in that it does not exist purely to celebrate the best work of fiction that year. Instead, it is looking to celebrate fiction that takes chances. They don’t officially use the label “experimental fiction,” as it implies “an eccentric deviation from the novel’s natural concerns, structures and idioms.”
Past winners include Isabel Waidner, M. John Harrison, Lucy Ellman, Robin Robertson, Nicola Barker, Mike McCormack, Kevin Barry, Ali Smith, and Eimear McBride. In addition, Rachel Cusk is the author to be shortlisted the most number of times (three).
For more information, please see The Goldsmith’s Prize.