2023 Prize

2023 winner: Cuddy by Benjamin Myers

Dr Tom Lee, Chair of Judges:
“Benjamin Myers' Cuddy is a book of remarkable range, virtuosity and creative daring. A millennia-spanning epic told in a multitude of perfectly realised voices, this visionary story of St Cuthbert and the cathedral built in his honour echoes through the ages. The reader comes away with a renewed and breathless sense of what a novel of this ambition is capable of.”

Read our news story about the winner.

The 2023 shortlist

Lori & Joe

Amy Arnold

Prototype

The Long Form

Kate Briggs

Fitzcarraldo Editions

Never Was

H. Gareth Gavin

Cipher Press

Man-Eating Typewriter

Richard Milward

White Rabbit

Cuddy

Benjamin Myers

Bloomsbury

The Future Future

Adam Thirlwell

Cape

The Judges

Tom Lee (Chair)

Tom Lee writes fiction and memoir. He is the author of a collection of short stories, Greenfly, and a novel, The Alarming Palsy of James Orr.

He lives in London and is Lecturer in Creative Writing at Goldsmiths.

Maddie Mortimer

Maddie Mortimer is a writer who lives in London.

In 2022, her first novel, Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies, was longlisted for the Booker Prize, shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize, and won the Desmond Elliot Prize, awarded to the best debut novel written in English and published in the UK and Ireland. It has since been translated into 14 languages and has featured on the 'best books of 2022' lists in The Sunday Times, The New Statesman, The New Yorker and Time Magazine, among others.

Helen Oyeyemi

Helen Oyeyemi is the author of ten books, including What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours, Gingerbread, Peaces, and the forthcoming Parasol Against the Axe.

She lives in Prague.

Ellen Peirson-Hagger

Ellen Peirson-Hagger is assistant culture editor of the New Statesman.

Her work includes reviews of books and music, interviews with prominent figures and reports on the culture industries.