Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Friday Black (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (US) and Riverrun (UK))
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is the New York Times bestselling author of Friday Black. Originally from Spring Valley, New York, he graduated from SUNY Albany and went on to receive his MFA from Syracuse University. His work has appeared, or is forthcoming, in numerous publications, including the New York Times Book Review, Esquire, Literary Hub, the Paris Review, Guernica, and Longreads. He was selected by Colson Whitehead as one of the National Book Foundation's “5 Under 35” honorees. [photo credit Limitless Imprint Entertainment]
Zoe Gilbert, Folk (Bloomsbury Publishing)
Zoe Gilbert is the winner of the Costa Short Story Award 2014. Her work has appeared on BBC Radio 4, and in anthologies and journals in the UK and internationally. She has taken part in writing projects in China and South Korea for the British Council, and she is completing a PhD on folk tales in contemporary fiction. The co-founder of London Lit Lab, which provides writing courses and mentoring for writers, she lives on the coast in Kent. [photo credit Lucy Johnston]
Guy Gunaratne, In Our Mad and Furious City (Tinder Press, Headline)
Guy Gunaratne grew up in North West London. He has worked as a designer, documentary filmmaker and video journalist covering post-conflict areas around the world, as well as co-founding two technology companies. He was shortlisted for the Guardian and 4th Estate BAME Short Story Prize.
-- WINNER 2019 --
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Louisa Hall, Trinity (Ecco)
Louisa Hall grew up in Philadelphia. She is the author of the novels Speak and The Carriage House, and her poems have been published in The New Republic, Southwest Review, and other journals. She is a professor at the University of Iowa, and the Western Writer in Residence at Montana State University. [photo credit Alex Trebus]
Sarah Perry, Melmoth (Serpent’s Tail)
Sarah Perry was born in Essex in 1979. She has been the writer in residence at Gladstone's Library and the UNESCO World City of Literature, Prague. She is the author of After Me Comes the Flood, winner of the East Anglian Book of the Year Award, and The Essex Serpent, a number one bestseller, which won the Waterstones Book of the Year and the British Book Awards Book of the Year. Her work has been translated into twenty languages. She lives in Norwich.
Novuyo Rosa Tshuma, House of Stone (Atlantic Books)
Novuyo Rosa Tshuma grew up in Zimbabwe, and has lived in South Africa and the USA. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her short fiction has featured in numerous anthologies, and she was awarded the 2014 Herman Charles Bosman Prize for the best literary work in English. [photo credit Kwela Books]