Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award

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The Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the YearAward is a literary prize awarded to a British author under the age of 35 for a published work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry. It is administered by the Society of Authors [1] and has been running since 1991. [2]

Contents

History

The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award is said here to have originally run between 1991 and 2009, but there is evidence to confirm that it began twenty years earlier. At that time entries were confined to short stories and published in the newspaper itself. The 1974 winner was Charles Nicholl, who went on to become well-known for historical biographies. [3] "The Ups and The Downs" was Charles Nicholl's disturbing and humorous account of a bad LSD trip in London.

In 1999, Paul Farley's The Boy from the Chemist is Here to See You "was so well received", according to the Encyclopedia of British Writers, that "it was named Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award". [4]

It was re-invigorated with the support of literary agents Peters Fraser + Dunlop in 2015 under the new name Sunday Times / Peters Fraser + Dunlop Young Writer of the Year Award. [5]

In 2019 the University of Warwick took over as co-sponsor. The award was renamed the Sunday Times / University of Warwick Young Writer of the Year Award.

Name history

Winners

YearAuthorTitlePublisherAwardJudges
1991 Helen Simpson Four Bare Legs in a Bed and Other Stories William Heinemann Winner
1992 Caryl Phillips Cambridge Bloomsbury Winner
1993 Simon Armitage Xanadu: A Poem Film for Television and Kid Bloodaxe/Faber & FaberWinner
1994 William Dalrymple City of Djinns: A Year in Dehli HarperCollins Winner
1995 Andrew Cowan Pig Michael Joseph Winner
1996 Katherine Pierpoint Truffle BedsFaber & FaberWinner
1997 Francis Spufford I May Be Some Time: Ice and the English ImaginationFaber & FaberWinner
1998 Patrick French Liberty or Death: India's Journey to Independence and DivisionHarperCollinsWinner
1999 Paul Farley The Boy from the Chemist is Here to See You [4] Pan MacmillanWinner
2000 Sarah Waters Affinity ViragoWinner
2001 Zadie Smith White Teeth Hamish HamiltonWinner
2002No award made
2003 William Fiennes The Snow GeesePicador ClassicWinner
2004 Robert Macfarlane Mountains of the Mind Granta BooksWinner
2005No award made
2006No award made
2007 Naomi Alderman DisobediencePenguinWinner
Horatio Clare Running for the HillsJohn MurrayShortlist
Rory Stewart Occupational Hazards: My Time Governing in IraqPicador
John StubbsJohn Donne: The Reformed SoulW. W. Norton & Company
2008 Adam Foulds The Truth About These Strange Times [6] Weidenfeld & NicolsonWinner
Nikita Lalwani GiftedVikingShortlist
James McConnachieThe Book of Love: In Search of the Kamasutra Kama SutraAtlantic
Robert Mcfarlane The Wild PlacesGranta
2009 Ross Raisin God's Own Country [7] VikingWinner
Adam Foulds The Broken WordCapeShortlist
Henry Hitchings The Secret Life of Words: How English Became EnglishJohn Murray
Edward Hogan BlackmoorPocket
2010No award made
2011No award made
2012No award made
2013No award made
2014No award made
2015 Sarah Howe Loop of Jade [8] Chatto & WindusWinner Sarah Waters, Andrew Holgate, Peter Kemp
Ben Fergusson The Spring of Kasper MeierLittle, BrownShortlist
Sunjeev Sahota The Year of the RunawaysPicador
Sara TaylorThe ShoreWilliam Heineman
2016 Max Porter Grief Is the Thing with Feathers Faber & FaberWinner James Naughtie, Stella Tillyard, Andrew Holgate
Jessie Greengrass An Account of the Decline of the Great Auk According to One Who Saw ItJohn Murray PressShortlist
Andrew McMillan PhysicalJonathan Cape
Benjamin Wood The EclipticSimon & Schuster
2017 Sally Rooney Conversations with Friends Faber & FaberWinner Elif Shafak, Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Andrew Holgate
Minoo DinshawOutlandish Knight: The Byzantine Life of Steven RuncimanPenguinShortlist
Claire North The End of the DayOrbit
Julianne PachicoThe Lucky OnesFaber & Faber
Sara TaylorThe LaurasWindmill
2018Adam WeymouthKings of the Yukon: An Alaskan River JourneyPenguinWinner Kamila Shamsie, Susan Hill, Andrew Holgate
Laura Freeman The Reading Cure: How Books Restored My AppetiteWeidenfeld & NicolsonShortlist
Imogen Hermes Gowar The Mermaid and Mrs HancockHarvill Secker
Fiona Mozley Elmet Hodder & Stoughton
2019 Raymond Antrobus The Perseverance [9] Penned in the MarginsWinner Kate Clanchy, Victoria Hislop, Andrew Holgate
Julia Armfield Salt SlowPan MacmillanShortlist
Yara Rodrigues Fowler Stubborn ArchivistFleet
Kim Sherwood Testamentriverrun
2020 Jay Bernard Surge Chatto & WindusWinner Sebastian Faulks, Tessa Hadley, Andrew Holgate
Catherine Cho Inferno: A MemoirBloomsbury PublishingShortlist
Naoise Dolan Exciting Times Orion
Seán HewittTongues of Fire
Miriam Nash NightingaleBloodaxe Books
2021 Cal Flyn Islands of AbandonmentWinner Tahmima Anam, Susan Hill, Andrew Holgate
Anna Beecher Here Comes the MiracleWeidenfeld & NicolsonShortlist
Rachel Long My Darling from the LionsPicador
Caleb Azumah Nelson Open Water Viking
Megan Nolan Acts of DesperationPenguin Books
2022 Tom Benn OxbloodBloomsbury PublishingWinner Stig Abell, Mona Arshi, Oyinkan Braithwaite, Anne Enright, Francis Spufford, Johanna Thomas-Corr
Lucy Burns Larger Than an OrangePenguin BooksShortlist
Maddie Mortimer Maps of our Spectacular BodiesScribner
Katherine Rundell Super-InfiniteMacmillan
2023 Tom Crewe The New Life Simon & SchusterWinner Anne Enright, Mendez, James McConnachie, Daljit Nagra, Johanna Thomas-Corr, Catriona Ward
Michael Magee Close to HomeFarrar, Straus and GirouxShortlist
Noreen Masud A Flat PlacePenguin Random House
Momtaza Mehri Bad Diaspora PoemsPenguin Books
2024Harriet BakerRural Hours [10]
Moses McKenzie Fast by the Horns
Scott PrestonThe Borrowed Hills
Ralf WebbStrange Relations

No award was made in 2002, 2005 or 2006. [11] [12]

References

  1. "Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award - The Society of Authors". 9 May 2020. Retrieved 8 February 2024.
  2. Getting a Life by Helen Simpson powells.com
  3. "Young Writer Of The Year Award". Peters Fraser and Dunlop (PFD). Archived from the original on 21 June 2015. Retrieved 11 December 2015.
  4. 1 2 Stade, George (2009). Encyclopedia of British Writers, 1800 to the Present, Volume 2. Infobase Publishing. p. 162. ISBN   978-1-4381-1689-1.
  5. Philip Jones (8 May 2015). "Sunday Times to relaunch Young Writer of the Year competition". The Bookseller. Retrieved 11 December 2015.
  6. Anna Richardson, "Fork-lift driver wins Sunday Times award", The Bookseller, 8 April 2008.
  7. Katie Allen, "Fifth time lucky for Raisin", The Bookseller , 6 April 2009.
  8. "2015 Winner - Peters Fraser and Dunlop (PFD)". Peters Fraser and Dunlop (PFD). Retrieved 11 December 2015.
  9. "Raymond Antrobus wins 2019 Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award". The Bookseller. Retrieved 30 July 2024.
  10. Thomas-Corr, Johanna (3 March 2025). "The Sunday Times Young Writer award: meet our shortlisted authors". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 11 March 2025.
  11. Staff Writer."And the shortlist is...", The Sunday Times, 11 March 2007.
  12. The Society of Authors: The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year (past winners)