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Nikesh Shukla's Costa-nominated Coconut Unlimited has been longlisted for the £10,000 Desmond Elliott Prize 2011, the award for a first novel published in the UK.
The Quartet title joins The Spider Truces by Tom Connolly, completing a prize-winning week for Brighton-based indie Myriad Editions, which has already seen titles win the Authors Club Best First Novel prize and the first Amazon Rising Stars gong for 2011.
Other titles on the 10-strong list include Stephen Kelman's Bloomsbury title Pigeon English and The Afterparty by journalist Leo Benedictus (Jonathan Cape).
The prize is intended to support new writers and to celebrate their fiction; it was inaugurated in honour of publisher and literary agent Desmond Elliott who stipulated that his estate should be invested in a charitable trust that would fund a literary award “to enrich the careers of new writers”.
A shortlist of three books will be announced on 25th May. The winner will be revealed on 23rd June.
The longlist in full:
The Afterparty by Leo Benidictus (Jonathan Cape)
Boxer Beetle by Ned Beauman (Sceptre)
Coconut Unlimited by Nikesh Shukla (Quartet)
The Collaborator by Mirza Waheed (Viking)
Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman (Bloomsbury)
Pub Walks in Underhill Country by Nat Segnit (Fig Tree)
Saraswati Park by Anjali Joseph (Fourth Estate)
The Spider Truces by Tom Connolly (Myriad Editions)
A Vision of Loveliness by Louise Levene (Bloomsbury)
Who is Mr Satoshi? by Jonathan Lee (William Heinemann)