Lloyd Banwo, Berry and Cahill make Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award shortlist

The shortlist for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award, featuring titles by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo, Freya Berry and James Cahill, has been unveiled. Drawn up by a panel of club members, the shortlist also includes novels by Paddy Crewe, Priscilla Morris and Joanna Quinn. 

The winner of the award, open to any debut novel written in English and published in the UK in 2022, will receive £2,500. The winning novel will be selected by this year’s guest adjudicator Louisa Young, and announced at a dinner at the National Liberal Club in London on 24th May.

This year’s shortlist comprises: The Dictator’s Wife by Freya Berry (Headline Review); Tiepolo Blue by James Cahill (Sceptre); My Name Is Yip by Paddy Crewe (Doubleday); When We Were Birds by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo (Hamish Hamilton); Black Butterflies by Priscilla Morris (Duckworth); and The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn (Fig Tree). 

Popescu commented: “We are proud to recommend six exceptional debuts. These dazzling novelists cover a range of subjects from art and privilege, love and loss, knowledge and selfhood, the pursuit of power and the devastating consequences of war. We travel with them through eastern Europe to the American Frontier, from England’s past to Trinidad today.”