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Guardian literary editor Claire Armitstead has criticised the editing of titles submitted for the newspaper's £10,000 First Book Prize, which released its longlist on Friday (27th August).
Chair of judges, Armitstead praised the list but Tweeted: "I've discovered some wonderful books—more than could fit on first book longlist—but am frustrated by the standard of editing." James Naughtie, the chair of 2009 judging panel for the Man Booker Prize, last year slammed the "sloppy editing" of some entries.
Armistead added, "This year's longlist brings together a younger generation of writers who have moved beyond the social realism of Martin Amis and Ian McEwan, and are pushing at the boundaries of realist fiction."
The Floating Man by Katharine Towers (Picador) is the lone poetry title, and will contend with novels by Rebecca Hunt, Nadifa Mohamed and Ned Beauman, plus titles on the bomber pilots of the Second World War and Virginia Woolf. The list was announced on Friday (27th August).
The shortlist will be announced in October, and the winner at the beginning of December.
The longlist in full:
Mr Chartwell by Rebecca Hunt (Fig Tree)
Boxer, Beetle by Ned Beauman (Sceptre)
Things We Didn't See Coming by Steven Amsterdam (Harvill)
Your Presence is Requested at Suvanto by Maile Chapman (Cape)
Black Mamba Boy by Nadifa Mohamed (HarperCollins)
Bomber County: The Lost Airmen of World War Two by Daniel Swift (Hamish Hamilton)
Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error by Kathryn Schulz (Portobello)
Romantic Moderns: English Writers, Artists and the Imagination from Virginia Woolf to John Piper by Alexandra Harris (Thames & Hudson)
Curfewed Night: A Frontline Memoir of Life, Love and War in Kashmir by Basharat Peer (HarperCollins)
The Floating Man by Katharine Towers (Picador)