The Guardian First Book Award was a literary award presented by The Guardian newspaper. It annually recognised one book by a new writer. It was established in 1999, replacing the Guardian Fiction Award or Guardian Fiction Prize that the newspaper had sponsored from 1965. The Guardian First Book Award was discontinued in 2016, with the 2015 awards being the last.
The newspaper determined to change its book award after 1998, and during that year also hired Claire Armitstead as literary editor. At the inaugural First Book Award ceremony in 1999, she said that she was informed of the change, details to be arranged, by the head of the marketing department during her second week on the job. "By the time we left the room we had decided on two key things. We would make it a first book award, and we would involve reading groups in the judging process. This was going to be the people's prize." About the opening of the prize to nonfiction she had said in August, "readers do not segregate their reading into fiction or non-fiction, so neither should we." There was no restriction on genre; for example, both poetry and travel would be included in principle, and so would self-published autobiographies.
For the first rendition, 140 books were submitted, including a lot of nonfiction strongest "by far" in "a hybrid of travel-writing and reportage"; weak in science and biography. Experts led by Armitstead selected a longlist of 11 and Borders book stores in Glasgow, London, Brighton and Leeds hosted reading groups that considered one book a week, September to November, and selected a shortlist of six. A panel of eight judges including two Guardian editors chose the winner. The newspaper called it "the first time the ordinary reading public have been involved in the selection of a major literary prize." In the event, the 1999 reading groups selected a shortlist including six novels, and all four groups favoured the novel Ghostwritten by David Mitchell. Their second favourite was one of the travelogue and reporting hybrids, by Philip Gourevitch of The New Yorker. The judges chose the latter, We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families —"a horrifying but humane account of the Rwandan genocide, its causes and consequences", the newspaper called it in August.
The prize was worth £10,000 to the winner. Eligible titles were published in English, and in the UK within the calendar year.
Winners and shortlists
Source:
Blue ribbon () = winner
1999
Philip Gourevitch, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families, a hybrid of journalism and travelogue about the Rwandan genocide
Daren King, Boxy an Star, a drugs fantasy written in a beautifully sustained argot
David Mitchell, Ghostwritten, a patchwork of stories from all corners of the world
Raj Kamal Jha, The Blue Bedspread, a chamber tragedy by Calcutta-based author
Gary Younge, No Place Like Home, account of his soul-searching journey from Stevenage to the deep South
Bella Bathurst, Lighthouse Stevensons, the story of Robert Louis Stevenson's lighthouse-building ancestors
2000
Zadie Smith, White Teeth, novel
Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves, novel
Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, memoir
Naomi Klein, No Logo, politics
Andrew X. Pham, Catfish and Mandala: a Vietnamese Odyssey, travelogue
2001
Chris Ware, Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth, graphic novel
Miranda Carter, Anthony Blunt: His Lives, biography
David Edmonds and John Eidinow, Wittgenstein's Poker: The Story of a Ten-Minute Argument Between Two Great Philosophers, non-fiction
Glen David Gold, Carter Beats The Devil, fiction
Rachel Seiffert, The Dark Room, fiction
2002
Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated
Alexandra Fuller, Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight
Hari Kunzru, The Impressionist
Oliver Morton, Mapping Mars
Sandra Newman, The Only Good Thing Anyone Has Ever Done
2003
Robert Macfarlane, Mountains of the Mind
Monica Ali, Brick Lane
DBC Pierre, Vernon God Little
Paul Broks, Into the Silent Land
Anna Funder, Stasiland
2004
Armand Marie Leroi, Mutants: On the Form, Varieties and Errors of Human Body
Matthew Hollis, Ground Water
David Bezmozgis Natasha and Other Stories
Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Rory Stewart, The Places in Between
2005
Alexander Masters, Stuart: A Life Backwards
Reza Aslan, No god but God
Richard Benson, The Farm
Suketu Mehta, Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found
Rattawut Lapcharoensap, Sightseeing
2006
Yiyun Li, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers
Lorraine Adams, Harbor
Clare Allan, Poppy Shakespeare
Hisham Matar, In the Country of Men
Carrie Tiffany, Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living
2007
Dinaw Mengestu, Children of the Revolution
Tahmima Anam, A Golden Age
Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Imperial Life in the Emerald City
Rosemary Hill, God's Architect
Catherine O'Flynn, What Was Lost
2008
Alex Ross, The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the 20th Century
Mohammed Hanif, A Case of Exploding Mangoes
Owen Matthews, Stalin's Children
Ross Raisin, God's Own Country
Steve Toltz, A Fraction of the Whole
2009
Petina Gappah, An Elegy for Easterly
Eleanor Catton, The Rehearsal
Samantha Harvey, The Wilderness
Reif Larsen, The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet
Michael Peel, A Swamp Full of Dollars
2010
Alexandra Harris, Romantic Moderns: English Writers, Artists and the Imagination from Virginia Woolf to John Piper
Nadifa Mohamed, Black Mamba Boy
Ned Beauman, Boxer, Beetle
Maile Chapman, Your Presence is Requested at Suvanto
Kathryn Schulz, In Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error
2011
Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer
Stephen Kelman, Pigeon English
Juan Pablo Villalobos, Down The Rabbit Hole
Mirza Waheed, The Collaborator
Amy Waldman, The Submission
2012
Kevin Powers, The Yellow Birds
Kerry Hudson, Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-cream Float Before He Stole My Ma
Chad Harbach, The Art of Fielding
Lindsey Hilsum, Sandstorm: Libya in the Time of Revolution
Katherine Boo, Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
2013
Donal Ryan, The Spinning Heart
NoViolet Bulawayo, We Need New Names
Shereen El Feki, Sex and the Citadel
Hannah Kent, Burial Rites
Lottie Moggach, Kiss Me First
2014
Colin Barrett, Young Skins (story collection)
Henry Marsh, Do No Harm (memoir)
Fiona McFarlane, The Night Guest (novel)
Evan Osnos, Age of Ambition (journalism)
May-Lan Tan, Things to Make and Break (story collection)
2015
Andrew McMillan, Physical
Diane Cook, Man v Nature
Chigozie Obioma, The Fishermen
Peter Pomerantsev, Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible
Max Porter, Grief Is the Thing With Feathers
Sara Taylor, The Shore
