Milward, Thirlwell and Myers shortlisted for the £10k Goldsmiths Prize 2023

Richard Milward’s Man Eating Typewriter (White Rabbit), Adam Thirlwell’s The Future Future (Cape) and Benjamin Myers’ Cuddy (Bloomsbury) have been shortlisted for the £10,000 Goldsmiths Prize 2023.

Gareth H Gavin’s Never Was (Cipher Press) has also been shortlisted, alongside Amy Arnold’s Lori & Joe (Prototype) and Kate Briggs’ The Long Form (Fitzcarraldo Editions).

The six titles featured on the shortlist were selected by the judging panel from more than 100 submissions.

For over 10 years, the Goldsmiths Prize, in partnership with the New Statesman, has rewarded fiction that "breaks the mould or extends the possibilities of the novel form". The annual prize is awarded to a book that is thought to be "genuinely novel" and that "embodies the spirit of invention that characterises the genre at its best".

The judging panel for 2023 comprises authors Helen Oyeyemi and Maddie Mortimer, the New Statesman’s Ellen Peirson-Hagger, and Tom Lee, a lecturer in creative writing at Goldsmiths, University of London. The winner of the prize will be announced at a ceremony in London on 8th November, while the first public event with the winner will take place at the Cambridge Literary Festival on 19th November.

Lee, who chaired the judging panel this year, said: “From the 107 books submitted for the Goldsmiths Prize 2023, the judges have chosen a shortlist that more than meets the prize’s mission to celebrate fiction that pushes the boundaries of what the novel can do. What struck us was the sheer ambition and invention on display in these six wildly different books."

He went on to add: "This is a shortlist that shows the novel – that most slippery and vital of forms – continuing to morph and reinvent itself in ways that surprise and delight us.”

Tom Gatti, executive editor of culture at The New Statesman, said: “ This year’s Goldsmiths judges have produced yet another intriguing, invigorating shortlist. The New Statesman is delighted to continue its association with this agenda-setting prize.”

Last year, Diego Garcia by Natasha Soobramanien and Luke Williams (Fitzcarraldo Editions) became the first collaborative novel to win the prize.