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Tom Crewe, Santanu Bhattacharya and Sian Hughes have been shortlisted for the 2024 Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award, now in its 70th year.
The prize of £2,500 aims to support UK-based authors, publishers and agents and the winning novel must originate in the UK and not have been published anywhere else in the world before its UK publication.
Penguin Random House has dominated this year’s six-strong shortlist. Crewe is up for The New Life (Chatto & Windus) and Bhattacharya for One Small Voice (Fig Tree). Meanwhile, Hughes is on the list for Pearl (The Indigo Press), and Jacqueline Crooks’ Fire Rush (Jonathan Cape) has been recognised, alongside Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow for All the Little Bird-Hearts (Tinder Press) and Michael Magee for Close to Home (Hamish Hamilton).
“These brilliant novelists tackle complex themes including religious violence and trauma, masculinity and male desire, neurodiversity, love and loss,” said writer and editor Lucy Popescu, who was chairing the judging panel this year. “There are intense explorations of belonging and identity as well as rich evocations of time and place.”
The winning novel will be selected by journalist and broadcaster Samira Ahmed — a guest adjudicator — and announced at a dinner at the National Liberal Club in London on 22nd May.