Books by Ferdia Lennon and Suzannah Dunn among the 16-strong Nero Book Awards shortlist

Suzannah Dunn’s Levitation For Beginners (Abacus) and Ferdia Lennon’s Glorious Exploits (Fig Tree) are among the 16 books that have been shortlisted for the Nero Book Awards.

The awards are open exclusively to writers based in the UK and Ireland, and the category winners will be announced on 14th January 2025. One of these books will be selected as the overall winner and will be awarded the Nero Gold Prize, Book of the Year.

Each of the category winners will receive £5,000, with the overall winner awarded an additional £30,000.

In the Fiction category, Irish novelist Donal Ryan is nominated for Heart, Be at Peace (Doubleday), told through the perspectives of 21 people from rural Ireland. Adam S Leslie also features on the shortlist with Lost in the Garden (Dead Ink Books), alongside Dunn and Jo Hamya, in the running for The Hypocrite (Weidenfeld & Nicolson). 

In the Non-Fiction category, all four nominated books are by debut authors, including Ellen Atlanta, shortlisted for Pixel Flesh: How Toxic Beauty Culture Harms Women (Headline Non-Fiction) and Orlando Whitfield, vying for the prize with All That Glitters: A Story of Friendship, Fraud and Fine Art (Profile Books). Zeinab Badawi is also on the list with An African History of Africa: From the Dawn of Humanity to Independence (W H Allen), as is Sophie Elmhirst, the author of Maurice and Maralyn: A Whale, a Shipwreck, a Love Story (Chatto & Windus).

In Debut Fiction, Colin Barrett has made the shortlist with his first novel, Wild Houses (Jonathan Cape), alongside Lara Haworth, on the list for Monumenta (Canongate), and Lennon. Completing the shortlist is No Small Thing (Serpent’s Tail) by Orlaine McDonald.

Meanwhile, the Children’s Fiction category features books for readers from eight years old, and also includes Young Adult works. English teacher Catherine Bruton has made the shortlist with Bird Boy (Nosy Crow), while YA writer Scarlett Dunmore is nominated for How to Survive a Horror Movie (Little Tiger). The Twelve by Liz Hyder (Pushkin Children’s Books) is also on the list, alongside Patrick Ness, the two-time Carnegie Medal winner, who is in the running with Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody (Walker Books).

"There is extraordinary writing talent in the UK and Ireland and our judges have worked tirelessly to find 16 outstanding books based on the quality of their writing and their readability," said Gerry Ford, founder and c.e.o. of Caffè Nero. "We received an overwhelming number of entries this year, so I know it was no small feat to choose just 16 for the shortlists. Through The Nero Book Awards, we continue our long-running support of the arts and to strengthen our community-based roots."

Last year, The Bee Sting by Paul Murray (Hamish Hamilton) was the overall winner of the prize.