2019 Longlist
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]
Michael Donkor, Hold (4th Estate)
Michael Donkor was born in London, to Ghanaian parents. He studied English at Wadham College, Oxford, undertook a Masters in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway and now teaches English Literature to secondary school students. Many of the issues in this novel are close to his heart, and his writing won him a place on the Writers’ Centre Norwich Inspires Scheme in 2014, where he received a year’s mentoring from Daniel Hahn
Clare Fisher, How the Light Gets In (Influx Press)
Clare Fisher was born and made in Tooting, south London in 1987. Her first novel, All the Good Things, was published by Viking, Penguin in 2017. How The Light Gets In, her first short story collection, was published by Influx Press in 2018. She now lives in Leeds. [photo credit Justine Stoddart]
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]
Emma Glass, Peach (Bloomsbury Publishing)
Emma Glass was born in Swansea. She studied English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Kent, then decided to become a nurse and went back to study Children’s Nursing at Swansea University. She lives and works in London. Peach is her first book. [photo credit Sarah Lee]
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.
Sally Rooney, Normal People (Faber & Faber)
Sally Rooney was born in 1991 and lives in Dublin. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, Granta, The White Review, and other journals and anthologies. Her debut novel, Conversations with Friends, was a Sunday Times, Observer and Telegraph Book of the Year. She was shortlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award and was the winner of the Sunday Times/PFD Young Writer of the Year Award. Her second novel Normal People was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. She is the editor of The Stinging Fly. [photo credit Jonny L. Davies]
Richard Scott, Soho (Faber & Faber)
Richard Scott grew up in London and studied at the Royal College of Music and at Goldsmiths College. He has been a winner of the Wasafiri New Writing Prize, a Jerwood/Arvon Poetry mentee, and a member of the Poetry Trust Aldeburgh Eight. His pamphlet ‘Wound’ (Rialto) won the Michael Marks Poetry Award 2016 and his poem ‘Crocodile’ won the 2017 Poetry London Competition. Soho is his first book.
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]
Jenny Xie, Eye Level (Graywolf Press)
Jenny Xie is the author of Nowhere to Arrive, recipient of the Drinking Gourd Chapbook Prize, and her poems have appeared in the American Poetry Review, the New Republic, Poetry, Tin House, and elsewhere. She lives in New York and teaches at New York University. Eye Level is her most recent collection. [photo credit Teresa Mathew]