Guardian First Book Award

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Guardian First Book Award was a literary award presented by The Guardian newspaper. It annually recognised one book by a new writer. It was established in 1999, replacing the Guardian Fiction Award or Guardian Fiction Prize that the newspaper had sponsored from 1965.[1] Guardian First Book Award was discontinued in 2016, with the 2015 awards being the last.[2]

History

The newspaper determined to change its book award after 1998, and during that year also hired Claire Armitstead as literary editor. At the inaugural First Book Award ceremony in 1999, she said that she was informed of the change, details to be arranged, by the head of the marketing department during her second week on the job. "By the time we left the room we had decided on two key things. We would make it a first book award, and we would involve reading groups in the judging process. This was going to be the people's prize."[1] About the opening to nonfiction she had said in August, "readers do not segregate their reading into fiction or non-fiction, so neither should we."[3] There was no restriction on genre; for example, both poetry and travel would be included in principle.[1] So would self-published autobiographies.[3]

For the first rendition, 140 books were submitted, including a lot of nonfiction strongest "by far" in "a hybrid of travel-writing and reportage"; weak in science and biography. Experts led by Armitstead selected a longlist of eleven and Borders book stores in Glasgow, London, Brighton and Leeds hosted reading groups that considered one book a week, September to November, and selected a shortlist of six. A panel of eight judges including two Guardian editors chose the winner.[3] The newspaper called it "the first time the ordinary reading public have been involved in the selection of a major literary prize." In the event, the 1999 reading groups selected a shortlist including six novels, and all four groups favored the novel Ghostwritten by David Mitchell. Their second favourite was one of the travelogue and reporting hybrids, by Philip Gourevitch of The New Yorker.[4] The judges chose the latter, We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families —"a horrifying but humane account of the Rwandan genocide, its causes and consequences", the newspaper called it in August.[3]

The prize was worth £10,000 to the winner. Eligible titles were published in English, and in the UK within the calendar year.[5]

Winners and shortlists

Source: [6]

Blue ribbon (Blue ribbon) = winner

1999
  • Blue ribbon Philip Gourevitch, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families, a hybrid of journalism and travelogue about the Rwandan genocide
  • Boxy an Star, a drugs fantasy written in a beautifully sustained argot by Daren King
  • Ghostwritten, a patchwork of stories from all corners of the world by David Mitchell
  • The Blue Bedspread, a chamber tragedy by the Calcutta-based Raj Kamal Jha
  • No Place Like Home, Gary Younge's account of his soul-searching journey from Stevenage to the deep South
  • Lighthouse Stevensons, the story of Robert Louis Stevenson's lighthouse-building ancestors by Bella Bathurst
2000
  • Blue ribbon Zadie Smith, White Teeth, novel
  • House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski, novel
  • A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers, memoir
  • No Logo by Naomi Klein, politics
  • Catfish and Mandala: a Vietnamese Odyssey by Andrew Pham, travelogue
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
  • Blue ribbon Colin Barrett, Young Skins (story collection)
  • Henry Marsh, Do No Harm (memoir)
  • Fiona McFarlane, The Night Guest (novel)
  • Evan Osnos, Age of Ambition (journalism)
  • May-Lan Tan, Things to Make and Break (story collection)
2015

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "Claire Armitstead on the First Book Award: Guardian literary editor's speech from the ceremony". guardian.co.uk, 2 December 1999. Retrieved 2013-04-17.
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 "Judges Poised as First-time Authors Excel: Travel books with bite make up the strongest entry in the Guardian's new book award - but where did all the science writers go?". Claire Armitstead. The Guardian, 27 August 1999. Retrieved 2013-04-18.
  4. ↑ "Readers pick top Guardian books". Fiachra Gibbons. The Guardian, 6 November 1999. Retrieved 2013-04-18.
  5. ↑ "Enter the Guardian first book award 2013". guardian.co.uk, 16 April 2013. Retrieved 2013-01-12.
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
Annual home pages for the First Book Award, 1999 to present

External links

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