Sara Baume’s brilliant debut novel Spill Simmer Falter Wither has been longlisted for the prestigious Warwick Prize for Writing. The biennial literary prize, run by the University of Warwick, is worth £25,000 and is an international cross-disciplinary award open to any genre or form of writing. (The titles include one poetry, seven fiction and five non-fiction books, with short stories, memoir and science fiction all represented, and there’s a fantastic mix of new authors among established, as well as a good representation of independent publishers.)
This year’s theme for this year’s prize is ‘Instinct’. The shortlist will be announced in early October, with the winner revealed early/mid November.
The longlist is:
Spill Simmer Falter Wither by Sara Baume (Tramp Press) – Fiction
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler (Serpent’s Tail) – Fiction
Divided Lives by Lyndall Gordon (Virago) – Non-fiction
Her Birth by Rebecca Goss (Carcanet) – Poetry
The Dig by Cynan Jones (Granta) – Fiction
Redeployment by Phil Klay (Canongate) – Fiction
A Man In Love by Karl Ove Knausgaard (Harvill Secker) – Non-fiction
The Lagoon: How Aristotle Invented Science by Armand Marie Leroi (Bloomsbury) – Nonfiction
Lila by Marilynne Robinson (Virago) – Fiction
Ismael and His Sisters by Louise Stern (Granta) – Fiction
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson (Scribe) – Non-fiction
Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer (Fourth Estate) – Fiction
Skyfaring by Mark Vanhoenacker (Chatto & Windus) – Non-fiction
The judging panel for the 2015 prize is chaired by Warwick alumna and author A L Kennedy, who is joined by author and academic Robert Macfarlane, actress and director Fiona Shaw, Warwick alumnus and Lonely Planet founder Tony Wheeler and physician and writer Gavin Francis.
We’re thrilled for Sara and so proud of this wonderful novel.
Find out more here: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/prizeforwriting.