Denise Mina makes Gordon Burn Prize shortlist

Denise Mina’s The Long Drop has made the fiction-heavy Gordon Burn Prize shortlist this year, along with two debuts.

Altogether four works of fiction have made the cut for the prize, which celebrates the legacy of great literature innovator Gordon Burn, and two non-fiction titles.

Small indie Wrecking Ball Press has debut Black Teeth and a Brilliant Smile by Adelle Stripe on the list, and CB Editions has This Is the Place to Be by Lara Pawson. Meanwhile Granta has two in the running - Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe by Kapka Kassabova and First Love by Gwendoline Riley.

They join Mina’s The Long Drop (Harvill Secker) and the othe debut, David Keenan’s This Is Memorial Device (Faber & Faber).

Ian Sansom, one of the judges, said: “Gordon Burn was unique and the Gordon Burn Prize is unique. It recognises what so many prizes fail to recognise: that literature, like all art, is in a constant process of reinvention and renewal and that the novel is a truly bastard form. The Gordon Burn Prize is a celebration of the art of possibility.”

He added: “This year’s shortlist includes hybrid works in many forms - autofiction, memoir, biography, travel writing and crime — and draws attention to brilliant and truly inventive work that might otherwise be overlooked. All ye that are weary and heavy burdened, gaze upon these works and wonder!”

The prize was established in 2012 and is run in partnership by the Gordon Burn Trust, New Writing North, Faber & Faber and Durham Book Festival.

The winner will be named at the Durham Book Festival on Thursday 12th October.