2023 First Novel Award Shortlist

Peggy Lee

Peggy Lee

28 July 2023

We are delighted to announce the BPA First Novel Award 2023 Shortlist.

This year’s judges, literary agents Eve White and Ludo Cinelli from the Eve White Literary Agency and author Luan Goldie (Nightingale PointHomecomingThese Streets)found it difficult to choose just five titles from an exceptional longlist of 22 titles. We are excited by their selected entries and look forward to reading a further 15,000 words of each.

The author of the winning manuscript will receive £1,000 and an introduction to our agent judges. The runner up and a commended entrant will be awarded £500 and £150 respectively, as well as agent introductions.

We received more than 1,000 entries from writers throughout the UK, as well as from Australia, New Zealand, North America and Europe. Recurrent themes were missing or absent mothers, women fighting for independence, and a preoccupation with the sea, increasingly hostile and yet a means of escape.

Our 2023 First Novel Award Shortlist includes: two historical novels, one about courtesans plotting to kill an emperor, the other, striking match factory workers; a lyrical, speculative narrative of a pregnant woman living a precarious existence by the crumbling Dorset coast; a potential book club favourite of an Indian bride declared a Hindu goddess; and the sweeping life story of a roller-disco DJ who dreams of returning to Jamaica.

Congratulations to the authors of this year’s five standout titles:

Epicharis

For Sugar

My Name is Fee O’Leary

RAMRAJ

Sun of Broken Glass

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Peggy Lee

Peggy Lee

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