Guardian First Book Award to close

8 April 2016 Books+Publishing

In the UK, the Guardian First Book Award is closing, citing a crowded awards landscape as the reason, reports the Bookseller. The £10,000 (A$18,704) prize was established in 1999, and over its 17 years has been awarded to Zadie Smith, Jonathan Safran Foer, Chris Ware and Yiyun Li, among others, with poet Andrew McMillan the winner of last year’s award. In a statement, the Guardian said the decision to end the award was because ‘the awards landscape has expanded extensively over the years and there are now numerous events which recognise emerging literary talent’. Guardian books editor Claire Armistead said in a Guardian post that the prize found itself ‘jostling for space’, pointing out that the 11 of the 20 novels on the Baileys Women’s Prize were debuts. The news comes after Guardian News & Media, publisher of the Guardian and the Observer, announced it would cut running costs by 20% in an attempt to break even within three years. In the past year, a number of UK literary prizes have been suspended or sought new sponsorship, including the Folio Prize, the Fiction Uncovered Prize and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

Category: International news