Reading List · Literary Prizes
Most prizes ask for the best novel. The Goldsmiths Prize asks for the one that does something new with the form, and its winners show it: a novel in one sentence, a novel in two halves that can be read in either order, a novel in verse, a novel written by two people. It has been given every November since 2013, by Goldsmiths, University of London and the New Statesman, to writers from Britain and Ireland.
By Lisanne Swart · 13 winners since 2013 · Fiction that breaks the mould · All literary prizes · Last reviewed 22 September 2026
Click a title to read about that book further down ↓
The 2026 shortlist has not been announced yet; the winner follows on 4 November 2026. The chair of the judges is the writer Francis Spufford. This page is updated when the shortlist is out.
Quick answer
The Goldsmiths Prize is a British prize worth £10,000, given since 2013 to “fiction that breaks the mould or opens up new possibilities for the novel form”. It is run by Goldsmiths, University of London with the New Statesman, and is open to writers from the UK and Ireland. There have been 13 winners. The latest is C.D. Rose’s We Live Here Now (2025); the 2026 winner is announced on 4 November.
How this page chooses
This page has every winner, so there is nothing to choose between: the timeline at the top shows all thirteen with the place each one is set, and every title has its own entry further down, in the same order.
Because this prize is about form, each entry says in its label what the book does. Under each one is a line of plain fact about the book or its author, and nothing that cannot be checked.
Oldest first, one for each year. The label says what each book does with the form; the line in red is a fact about the book or its author, not an opinion about it.
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An unnamed young woman in rural Ireland tells of growing up with a religious mother and a brother with a brain tumour, in sentences that come apart as she does.
It took nine years to find a publisher, and also won the Baileys Women’s Prize in 2014.
George, sixteen, grieves for her mother in present-day Cambridge; the Renaissance painter Francesco del Cossa tells his own story in fifteenth-century Ferrara. It was printed in two versions, each starting with a different half.
It also won the Costa Novel Award and the Baileys Women’s Prize, and was shortlisted for the Booker.
In 1978 John Lennon tries to reach Dorinish, the island he owned in Clew Bay, with the help of a driver called Cornelius. Partway through, Barry himself steps in to write about his research.
Barry had won the Dublin Literary Award in 2013 with City of Bohane.
On All Souls’ Day, Marcus Conway, a middle-aged engineer, sits at his kitchen table and remembers his life. The whole novel is one sentence, and slowly it becomes clear that Marcus is dead.
It also won the Dublin Literary Award in 2018.
In a future where everyone stays young and is kept “in balance” by the System, Mira A starts telling her story, and the page itself breaks down, into coloured words, gaps and diagrams.
Barker had won the IMPAC Dublin award in 2000 with Wide Open.
Walker, a Canadian who fought on D-Day, drifts through New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles after the war, in a novel told in verse and prose, like a film noir.
It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2018 and won the Walter Scott Prize in 2019.
The thoughts of a woman in Ohio who bakes pies to help support her family, in one sentence of about a thousand pages, broken only by the story of a mountain lioness.
It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2019.
Shaw lives on a boat in London; Victoria, on and off with him, is doing up her dead mother’s house near the Severn. Around them the ordinary world starts to turn uncanny, with echoes of The Water Babies.
It was Harrison’s first novel in seven years.
Sterling is arrested for nothing and, with three friends, has to prove their innocence in a world of matadors, footballers and spaceships that owes something to Kafka.
Waidner had been shortlisted before, in 2019.
Two British writer friends meet a man called Diego and learn about the Chagossians, expelled by Britain from their islands between 1968 and 1973 to make way for an American military base.
The first novel written by two people to win the prize.
The story of St Cuthbert and the people who lived in his shadow, from the Viking raids on Lindisfarne to present-day England, told in poetry, prose, drama, diary and real historical accounts.
Myers had won the Walter Scott Prize in 2018 with The Gallows Pole.
An unnamed narrator moves through the European art world, where every artist is called G. Four chapters: “The Stuntman”, “The Midwife”, “The Diver” and “The Spy”.
Cusk has been shortlisted four times, more than any other writer.
Twelve people caught up in an installation by a famous conceptual artist, and what it does to their lives: a book about what art is and what it does, or does not do.
The judges called it “at once hilarious and deeply haunting”.
The winners break the novel in different places. Two are written as one sentence, Solar Bones and Ducks, Newburyport. How to Be Both can be read in either order. The Long Take is partly in verse, Cuddy mixes poetry, drama and diary, and Diego Garcia was written by two people.
That does not make them hard work by rule. Several of them also won or were shortlisted for the big mainstream prizes: the Booker, the Women’s Prize, the Costa and the Dublin Literary Award.
The Goldsmiths shares winners with other prizes on this site. Mike McCormack and Kevin Barry both won the Dublin Literary Award, as did Nicola Barker, in its IMPAC years. Robin Robertson and Benjamin Myers both won the Walter Scott Prize.
A British prize worth £10,000 for “fiction that breaks the mould or opens up new possibilities for the novel form”, run by Goldsmiths, University of London with the New Statesman since 2013.
C.D. Rose, for We Live Here Now, announced on 6 November 2025.
On 4 November 2026. The shortlist comes out in the autumn, before that.
Writers who are citizens of the UK or Ireland, or have lived there for three years, with a novel from a publisher based in the UK or Ireland. Short-story collections are not eligible.
£10,000 to the winner.
Not yet. Rachel Cusk has been shortlisted the most, four times, and won in 2024 with Parade.
Some are long or unusual, but not all. Solar Bones is one sentence but a short book; The Long Take and Cuddy move between verse and prose.
Every winner has a full entry on this page. For a first one, try Solar Bones or How to Be Both.
Winner list and 2026 dates last verified 22 September 2026.
The notes on this page are all mine,
and the books are all theirs.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“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 the 2025 judges, on We Live Here Now
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