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Pin, Walsh and Winn shortlisted for £5k Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize
Jonathan Cape assistant-turned-novelist Cecile Pin and fiction editor of Belfast-based magazine the Tangerine Michael Magee are shortlisted for the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize for 2023 alongside Colin Walsh, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Alice Winn and Jacqueline Crooks.
The £5,000 award is for debut fiction of all forms, voted for by Waterstones booksellers and was launched in April 2022.
Pin is on the six-strong shortlist for Wandering Souls (Fourth Estate), described by Waterstones as “a beautiful and devastating story of immigration to Thatcher’s Britain”, secured in a pre-emptive deal within 24 hours of submission. Waterstones’ booksellers said: “The hauntingly beautiful narrative is deftly interwoven with the voice of their lost younger brother, following them on their journey to settle and recover over generations, from a place between the living and the dead.”
Close to Home (Hamish Hamilton) is Magee’s “stunning portrait of modern masculinity, class, poverty and trauma, told with boundless intelligence and heart,”, Waterstones said.
Walsh’s Kala (Atlantic Books) is dubbed by Waterstones “at once a gorgeously drawn and richly characterised coming of age story and a dizzyingly propulsive thriller”. The retailer said: “Set in a sleepy Irish seaside town over two timelines, it’s the story of a group of friends who, reunited 20 years after the disappearance of their friend, are haunted by the mystery of what happened to her.”
In Memoriam (Viking) by Brooklyn-based writer Winn, is described by Waterstones as “a luminous, historical love story between two WWI soldiers”. One bookseller dubbed it “a masterpiece”.
Meanwhile PEN/Jean Stein Book Award-winner Adjei-Brenyah’s “highly original” near-future dystopia Chain-Gang All-Stars (Harvill Secker) was praised by Waterstones as “a playful and innovative wild ride of a novel", imagining a near-future in which prisoners are pitted against each other for capitalist entertainment. The shop’s booksellers described it as a “searing commentary of the state of the US penal system” and an “exceptional literary achievement”.
Fire Rush (Jonathan Cape) by Jacqueline Crooks, also shortlisted for this year’s Women’s Prize, is “a debut of exceptionally assured voice,” Waterstones said. “Set in the Black community of 1970s Norwood, it is a story about falling hard and fast in love and the reverberations of this experience being dramatically cut short, about self-discovery, friendship, anger and police brutality—thrumming with music and history.”
Last year’s winner, The Rabbit Hutch (Oneworld) by Tess Gunty, “was immediately propelled into the bestseller chart, seeing an impressive sales increase of over 800%”, Waterstones said. It won both the 2022 National Book Award for Fiction and the Barnes & Noble Discover Prize. The book has since also been optioned for screen.
Bea Carvalho, Waterstones head of books, says: “We are delighted to present the second Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize shortlist, as chosen by Waterstones booksellers. The six shortlisted novels play with genre and form but are united by an astonishing command of storytelling, balancing tradition with innovation.”
She added: “These first novels are imbued with enormous ambition and passion, often drawing on the lived experience of the authors, their families, or communities, to dazzling effect. They are all bold, electrifying new voices, representing the best of the future of fiction. We can’t wait to share them with the world, and to see what they all do next.”
The winner will be announced at an evening ceremony on 24th August and will receive a prize of £5,000 and the backing of all Waterstones shops and www.waterstones.com.
