Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award

The Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award 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]

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][dead link‍] "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

  • 1991 to 2009 – Sunday Times Young Writer Award
  • Starting 2015 – Sunday Times / Peters Fraser + Dunlop Young Writer of the Year Award
  • Starting 2019 – Sunday Times / University of Warwick Young Writer of the Year Award
  • Starting 2021 – Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award

Winners

Year Author Title Publisher Award Judges
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 & Faber Winner
1994 William Dalrymple City of Djinns: A Year in Dehli HarperCollins Winner
1995 Andrew Cowan Pig Michael Joseph Winner
1996 Katherine Pierpoint Truffle Beds Faber & Faber Winner
1997 Francis Spufford I May Be Some Time: Ice and the English Imagination Faber & Faber Winner
1998 Patrick French Liberty or Death: India's Journey to Independence and Division HarperCollins Winner
1999 Paul Farley The Boy from the Chemist is Here to See You[4] Pan Macmillan Winner
2000 Sarah Waters Affinity Virago Winner
2001 Zadie Smith White Teeth Hamish Hamilton Winner
2002 No award made
2003 William Fiennes The Snow Geese Picador Classic Winner
2004 Robert Macfarlane Mountains of the Mind Granta Books Winner
2005 No award made
2006 No award made
2007 Naomi Alderman Disobedience Penguin Winner
Horatio Clare Running for the Hills John Murray Shortlist
Rory Stewart Occupational Hazards: My Time Governing in Iraq Picador
John Stubbs John Donne: The Reformed Soul W. W. Norton & Company
2008 Adam Foulds The Truth About These Strange Times[6] Weidenfeld & Nicolson Winner
Nikita Lalwani Gifted Viking Shortlist
James McConnachie The Book of Love: In Search of the Kamasutra Kama Sutra Atlantic
Robert Mcfarlane The Wild Places Granta
2009 Ross Raisin God's Own Country[7] Viking Winner
Adam Foulds The Broken Word Cape Shortlist
Henry Hitchings The Secret Life of Words: How English Became English John Murray
Edward Hogan Blackmoor Pocket
2010 No award made
2011 No award made
2012 No award made
2013 No award made
2014 No award made
2015 Sarah Howe Loop of Jade[8] Chatto & Windus Winner Sarah Waters, Andrew Holgate, Peter Kemp
Ben Fergusson The Spring of Kasper Meier Little, Brown Shortlist
Sunjeev Sahota The Year of the Runaways Picador
Sara Taylor The Shore William Heineman
2016 Max Porter Grief Is the Thing with Feathers Faber & Faber Winner James Naughtie, Stella Tillyard, Andrew Holgate
Jessie Greengrass An Account of the Decline of the Great Auk According to One Who Saw It John Murray Press Shortlist
Andrew McMillan Physical Jonathan Cape
Benjamin Wood The Ecliptic Simon & Schuster
2017 Sally Rooney Conversations with Friends Faber & Faber Winner Elif Shafak, Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Andrew Holgate
Minoo Dinshaw Outlandish Knight: The Byzantine Life of Steven Runciman Penguin Shortlist
Claire North The End of the Day Orbit
Julianne Pachico The Lucky Ones Faber & Faber
Sara Taylor The Lauras Windmill
2018 Adam Weymouth Kings of the Yukon: An Alaskan River Journey Penguin Winner Kamila Shamsie, Susan Hill, Andrew Holgate
Laura Freeman The Reading Cure: How Books Restored My Appetite Weidenfeld & Nicolson Shortlist
Imogen Hermes Gowar The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock Harvill Secker
Fiona Mozley Elmet Hodder & Stoughton
2019 Raymond Antrobus The Perseverance[9] Penned in the Margins Winner Kate Clanchy, Victoria Hislop, Andrew Holgate
Julia Armfield Salt Slow Pan Macmillan Shortlist
Yara Rodrigues Fowler Stubborn Archivist Fleet
Kim Sherwood Testament riverrun
2020 Jay Bernard Surge Chatto & Windus Winner Sebastian Faulks, Tessa Hadley, Andrew Holgate
Catherine Cho Inferno: A Memoir Bloomsbury Publishing Shortlist
Naoise Dolan Exciting Times Orion
Seán Hewitt Tongues of Fire
Miriam Nash Nightingale Bloodaxe Books
2021 Cal Flyn Islands of Abandonment Winner Tahmima Anam, Susan Hill, Andrew Holgate
Anna Beecher Here Comes the Miracle Weidenfeld & Nicolson Shortlist
Rachel Long My Darling from the Lions Picador
Caleb Azumah Nelson Open Water Viking
Megan Nolan Acts of Desperation Penguin Books
2022 Tom Benn Oxblood Bloomsbury Publishing Winner
Lucy Burns Larger Than an Orange Penguin Books Shortlist Stig Abell, Mona Arshi, Oyinkan Braithwaite, Anne Enright, Francis Spufford, Johanna Thomas-Corr
Maddie Mortimer Maps of our Spectacular Bodies Scribner
Katherine Rundell Super-Infinite Macmillan
2023 Tom Crewe The New Life Simon & Schuster Winner
Michael Magee Close to Home Farrar, Straus and Giroux Shortlist Anne Enright, Mendez, James McConnachie, Daljit Nagra, Johanna Thomas-Corr, Catriona Ward
Noreen Masud A Flat Place Penguin Random House
Momtaza Mehri Bad Diaspora Poems Penguin Books

No award was made in 2002, 2005 or 2006.[10][11]

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). Retrieved 11 December 2015.
  4. ^ a b 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. ^ Staff Writer."And the shortlist is...", The Sunday Times, 11 March 2007.
  11. ^ The Society of Authors: The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year (past winners)