C.D. Rose’s We Live Here Now wins the 2025 Goldsmiths Prize

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C.D. Rose was awarded the £10,000 Goldsmiths Prize at a ceremony at Foyles in central London.

C.D. Rose in a red velvet jacket holding the ceramic trophy — C.D. Rose was awarded the Goldsmiths Prize at a ceremony in central London

Born in Manchester and now living in Hebden Bridge, C.D. Rose is the author of four previous books. We Live Here Now is his first novel to be shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize.

Amy Sackville, Chair of Judges and Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing said, "A book about what art is and what it does (or doesn’t do), C.D. Rose’s ‘We Live Here Now’ in its turn asks profound questions of the contemporary world and the systems that power it, in the aether, deep under the surface, far out at sea. Motifs emerge and recur: containers, erasures, shady markets, sound and silence, ‘echo and drone’."

This constellatory novel tests the bounds of the form while delivering all of its satisfactions: at once hilarious and deeply haunting, intellectually challenging and supremely entertaining.

Amy Sackville, Chair of Judges

Tanjil Rashid, Culture Editor at The New Statesman, said: "Rose’s dazzling and strange fictions reveal his incredible gift for writing. I’m so glad he is receiving the recognition and readership he deserves so early in his career."

The Goldsmiths Prize champions innovative fiction, recognising writers who reject convention and create something truly novel. As Goldsmiths celebrates its 120-year anniversary, we are proud to continue our commitment to this important tradition of creativity, which offers inspiration to our students and future writers.

Professor David Oswell, Interim Vice-Chancellor

Now in its thirteenth year, the Goldsmiths Prize was launched in association with the New Statesman in 2013 with the goal of celebrating the creative daring associated with Goldsmiths as a university and to reward mould-breaking fiction from the UK and Ireland.

The shortlist for 2025 included:

Colwill Brown, We Pretty Pieces of Flesh (Chatto & Windus)
Yrsa Daley-Ward, The Catch (Merky Books)
Sarah Hall, Helm (Faber)
Ben Pester, The Expansion Project (Granta)
Charlie Porter, Nova Scotia House (Particular Books)
C.D. Rose, We Live Here Now (Melville House)

Amy Sackville, author of three novels including Painter to the King (2018), was joined on the judging panel by Mark Haddon, author of four novels, including The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (2003) and The Porpoise (2019) (shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize 2019); Megan Nolan, author of Acts of Desperation (2021) and Ordinary Human Failings (2023) and contributor to the New Statesman and Simon Okotie, known for the acclaimed Absalon trilogy of novels and author of The Future of the Novel (2025).

A dizzying, encyclopaedic series of stories linked by texture, resonance and suggestion, We Live Here Now is a novel of immense scope and subtlety.

Simon Okotie, Judge

Judge Simon Okotie said about We Live Here Now: "Exploring the repercussions of twelve individuals’ involvement in a famous conceptual artist’s installation, it traces the invisible circuits and networks – of love, capital and war – that shape our contemporary lived experience."

Each year, the trophy is created by a student from the School of Design. The 2025 trophy was made by Goldsmiths design graduate Cherrie Tong.

2020 winner receives trophy

The 2020 Prize winner, M John Harrison, also collected his trophy at the November ceremony. He won for his novel The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again, and was announced as the winner during an online ceremony due to the Covid-19 pandemic. M John Harrison was presented with the award by author and critic Chris Power, who was a member of the judging panel in 2020.