McKitterick Prize

Joanne Harris (left) and Lemn Sissay (right) with 2022 McKitterick Prize winner David Annand at Southwark Cathedral (photograph © Adrian Pope)
Joanne Harris (left) and Lemn Sissay (right) with 2022 McKitterick Prize winner David Annand at Southwark Cathedral (photograph © Adrian Pope)
For a first novel by an author over 40

Tom McKitterick, the former editor of Political Quarterly and author of an unpublished novel, endowed the McKitterick Prize which was first awarded in 1990. It is also generously supported by Hawthornden Literary Retreat. It is given annually to an author over the age of 40 for a first novel, published or unpublished.

 The prize money is £4,000 for the winner and £2,000 for the runner-up, with each shortlisted author receiving £1,000 (up to four authors). 

The 2024 McKitterick Prize has now closed for submissions.


The 2023 McKitterick Prize Winner


Louise Kennedy for Trespasses published by Bloomsbury Publishing

‘An intelligent, delicately told tale of love under military rule where allegiances and vulnerabilities shift from one scene to the next, as a mis-matched couple lunge towards each other with desire. Told against a backdrop of ruined dreams, alcoholism and discoloured food, Trespasses is a unique account of a period British and Irish history of systematic oppression, challenged loyalties, criminality, alienation and bloodshed.’ —Selma Dabbagh, 2023 McKitterick Prize judge


The 2023 McKitterick Prize Runner-Up:

Liz Hyder for The Gifts published by Manilla Press, Bonnier Books UK

The 2023 McKitterick Prize Shortlist:

Aamina Ahmad for The Return of Faraz Ali published by Sceptre, Hodder & Stoughton

Ayanna Lloyd Banwo for When We Were Birds published by Hamish Hamilton, Penguin Random House UK

Joanna Quinn for The Whalebone Theatre published by Fig Tree, Penguin Random House UK

Taymour Soomro for Other Names for Love published by Harvill Secker, Penguin Random House UK

If you are interested in buying any of the books shortlisted here, please visit Bookshop.org. A percentage of each sale will go to the Authors’ Contingency Fund, providing hardship grants to authors in financial difficulty.

With thanks, the judges of the 2023 McKitterick Prize:

© Susan Baker-Smith 

Selma Dabbagh

Selma Debbagh is a British Palestinian writer of fiction. Born in Scotland, she has lived in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, France, Egypt and the West Bank. Her work includes the novel, ‘Out of It,’ (Bloomsbury, 2011) which was awarded the Premio Opera Prize in Spoleto 2019. Her radio play ‘The Brick,’ BBC Radio 4 was nominated for the Imison Award and she and has won various short story awards. Her non-fiction has appeared in the Guardian, GQ and other publications. She is the editor of ‘We Wrote In Symbols; Love and Lust by Arab Women Writers,’ (Saqi, 2021). www.selmadabbagh.com

Rebecca Foster

© Chris Foster

Rebecca Foster is a freelance proofreader and literary critic. From Maryland, USA, she has now lived in England for over 15 years. Her first degree was in English and Religion; she also has an MA in Victorian Literature from the University of Leeds. An associate editor for Bookmarks magazine, she reviews books for multiple print and online publications on both sides of the pond, including BookBrowse, Foreword Reviews, Shelf Awareness, the Times Literary Supplement and Wasafiri, as well as on her blog, Bookish Beck. She volunteers in her local library and is an avid follower of literary prizes

Gonzalo C. Garcia

Gonzalo C. Garcia is a Chilean writer and Assistant Professor in Creative Writing at the Warwick Writing Programme. His first novel, We Are The End, launched in October 2017 with Galley Beggar Press and was nominated for the Edinburgh Festival First Novel Award 2017. He was also shortlisted for the 2021 Bristol Short Story Prize. He is currently working on his second book and teaching creative writing.

Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott

Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott is a Texas-born author and screenwriter living in London and Los Angeles.  Her debut novel Swan Song was published by Penguin Random House/ Hutchinson in 2018.  She holds a BFA (Directing) from Carnegie Mellon University, studied screenwriting at USC and has been honoured by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as a finalist for the Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting.  A graduate of UEA’s Creative Writing MA, she was the recipient of the Bridport Prize for a first novel.  Swan Song was named a Book of the Year by The Times, was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, shortlisted for the Goldsboro Glass Bell Award and was the winner of the 2019 McKitterick Prize.

Anietie Isong

Anietie Isong’s novel, Radio Sunrise, won the 2018 McKitterick Prize. His collection of short stories, Someone Like Me, won the first Headlight Review Chapbook Prize for Prose Fiction in 2020. He received the Authors’ Foundation grant for his new novel, News at Noon, which will be published in 2022 by Jacaranda Books. Isong has been featured at the Birmingham Literature Festival, Marlborough Literature Festival, Henley Literary Festival, among other literary festivals. He holds a PhD in New Media and Writing.” 

Nick Rennison

© David Lawrence

Nick Rennison is a writer, editor and bookseller with a particular interest in modern history and crime fiction. He is the editor of six anthologies of short stories and has written books on a wide variety of subjects from Freud and psychoanalysis to the history of Bohemian London. His two novels, Carver’s Quest and Carver’s Truth, are both set in nineteenth-century London. He is a regular reviewer for the Sunday Times, for which he has written a monthly column on historical fiction for more than a decade. He has in the past been a judge for the Historical Writers’ Association Gold Crown for historical fiction and for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award

2023

  • Louise Kennedy for Trespasses (Bloomsbury Publishing)
  • Runner up: Liz Hyder for The Gifts (Manilla Press, Bonnier Books UK)

2022

  • David Annand for Peterdown (Little, Brown Book Group)
  • Runner up: Lisa Taddeo for Animal (Bloomsbury)

2021

  • Elaine Feeney for As You Were (Harvill Secker, Vintage) £4,000
  • Runner-up: Deepa Anappara for Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line (Chatto & Windus, Vintage) £1,250

2020

  • Claire Adam for Golden Child (Faber and Faber) £4,000
  • Runner-up: Taffy Brodesser-Akner for Fleishman is in Trouble  (Wildfire, Headline) £1,250

2019

  • Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott for Swan Song (Hutchinson) £4,000
  • Runner-up: Carys Davies for West (Granta Books) £1,250

2018

  • Anietie Isongfor Radio Sunrise (Jacaranda) £4,000
  • Runner-up: Frances Maynard for The Seven Rules of Elvira Carr (Mantle) £1,250

2017

  • David Dyer for The Midnight Watch (Atlantic Books) £4,000
  • Runner-up: Austin Duffy for This Living & immortal Thing (Granta) £1,000

2016

  • Petina Gappah for The Book of Memory (Faber) £4,000
  • Runner-up: Nick Coleman for Pillow Man (Cape) £1,000

2015

  • Robert Allison for The Letter Bearer (Granta) £4,000
  • Runner-up: Paul Ewen for Francis Pug: How To Be A Public Author (Galley Beggar Press) £1,000

2014

  • Gabriel Weston for Dirty Work (Cape) £4,000                                             
  • Runner-up: Gabriel Gbadamosi for Vauxhall (Telegram Books) £1,000

2013

  • Alison Moore for The Lighthouse (Salt) £4,000                                           
  • Runner-up: Caroline Brothers for Hinterland (Bloomsbury)

2012

  • Ginny Baily for Africa Junction (Harvill Secker / Vintage) £4,000
  • Runner-up: Cressida Connolly for My Former Heart (Fourth Estate)

2011

  • Emma Henderson for Grace Williams Says It Loud (Sceptre) £4,000
  • Runner-up: Frances Kay for Micka (Picador)

2010

  • Raphael Selbourne for Beauty (Tindal Street Press) £4,000

2009

  • Chris Hannan for Missy (Chatto) £4,000

2008

  • Jennie Walker for 24 for 3 (Bloomsbury) £4,000

2007

  • Reina James for This Time of Dying (Portobello) £4,000

2006

  • Peter Pouncey for Rules for Old Men Waiting (Chatto & Windus) £4,000

2005

  • Lloyd Jones for Mr Vogel (Seren) £4,000

2004

  • Mark Haddonfor The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (Jonathan Cape) £4,000

2003

  • Mary Lawson Crow for Lake (Chatto & Windus) £4,000

2002

  • Manil Suri for The Death of Vishnu (Bloomsbury Publishing) £4,000

2001

  • Giles Waterfieldfor The Long Afternoon (Headline Review) £4,000

2000

  • Chris Dolan for Ascension Day (Headline Review) £4,000

1999

  • Magnus Mills for The Restraint of Beasts (Flamingo) £4,000

1998

  • Eli Gottlieb for The Boy Who Went Away (Jonathan Cape) £4,000

1997

  • Patricia Duncker for Hallucinating Foucault (Serpent’s Tail) £4,000

1996

  • Stephen Blanchard for Gagarin and I (Vintage) £5,000

1995

  • Christopher for Bigsby Hester (Weidenfeld) £5,000

1994

  • Helen Dunmore for Zennor in Darkness (Viking) £5,000

1993

  • Andrew Barrow for The Tap Dancer (Duckworth) £5,000

1992

  • Alberto Manguel for News from a Foreign Country Came (Harper Collins) £5,000

1991

  • John Loveday for Halo (Harcourt Brace) £5,000

1990

  • Simon Mawer for Chimera (Hamish Hamilton) £5,000

Tom McKitterick

Thomas Edward Maurice McKitterick, also known as T.E.M McKitterick lived in Dartford, Kent and died on the 11 November 1986. He worked as a wartime censor with the French army in the middle East, which later inspired the unpublished novel he wrote at age 65. The novel was also set during war and took place across Lebanon, Algiers and Bordeaux. McKitterick was the joint editor of the magazine Political Quarterly from 1957–1966 and a regular contributor to radio programmes on topics of world service. Along, with Leonard Woolf (under the pen name Kenneth Younger) he was a contributing editor for Fabian International Essays, which was published by Hogarth Press in 1957.

Having written an unpublished novel himself later on in life, Tom McKitterick was keen to celebrate and uphold unpublished and first time authors. He became a member of the Society of Authors on 9 January 1981 and after his death, he left a trust to set up the McKitterick Prize, which was awarded for the first time in 1990.

Hawthornden Foundation

Hawthornden Foundation is a private charitable foundation supporting contemporary writers and the literary arts. Established by Drue Heinz, the noted philanthropist and patron of the arts, the Foundation is named after Hawthornden Castle in Midlothian, Scotland, where an international residential fellowship program provides month-long retreats for creative writers from all disciplines to work in peaceful surroundings. In addition, the Foundation sponsors the annual Hawthornden Prize, one of Britain’s oldest and foremost literary awards, and provides grant support to other literary programs.


Charity number 327891