Betty Trask Award

Best First Novel Awards

2019
The Chameleon by Samuel Fisher
The Litten Path by James Clarke (winner)
The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar
Sweet Fruit, Sour Land by Rebecca Ley
The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh

2017
Born On a Tuesday by Elnathan John
Fallow by Daniel Shand (winner)
Five Rivers Met On a Wooded Plain by Barney Norris
Harmless Like You by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan
The Hollow Men by Rob McCarthy

2016
Butterfly Fish by Irenosen Okojie
Glass by Alex Christofi (winner)
The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley
Weathering by Lucy Wood

2015
Chop Chop by Simon Wroe
Eat My Heart Out by Zoe Pilger
Elizabeth Is Missing by Emma Healey
The Spring of Kasper Meier by Ben Fergusson (winner)

2014
Chaplin & Company by Mave Fellowes
Idiopathy by Sam Byers
Ostrich by Matt Greene
The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer (winner)
We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo

2013
Care of Wooden Floors by Will Wiles
The Innocents by Francesca Segal
The Land of Decoration by Grace McCleen (winner)
The Spider King's Daughter by Chibundu Onuzo

2012
Bed by David Whitehouse (winner)
The Danger Game by Kalinda Ashton
Hungry, the Stars and Everything by Emma Jane Unsworth
My Sister Lives On the Mantelpiece by Annabel Pitcher
Scissors, Paper, Stone by Elizabeth Day

2011
Hungry, the Stars and Everything by Emma Jane Unsworth (winner)
Luke and Jon by Robert Williams
Rupture by Simon Lelic
Twenty-One Locks by Laura Barton

2010
After the Fire, a Still Small Voice by Evie Wyld
Black Mamba Boy by Nadifa Mohamed (winner)
I Do Not Come to You By Chance by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani
A Kind of Intimacy by Jenn Ashworth

2009
The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton
The Wilderness by Samantha Harvey (winner)

2008
The Exchange-rate Between Love and Money by Thomas Leveritt
The Floating Island by Anna Ralph
God's Own Country by Ross Raisin
London and the South-East by David Szalay (winner)

2007
In Search of the Missing Eyelash by Karen McLeod
The Long Dry by Cynan Jones
My Side of the Story by Will Davis (winner)
The Truth About These Strange Times by Adam Foulds
You Can Live Forever by Julie Maxwell

2006
The Killing Jar by Nicola Monaghan
The Short Day Dying by Peter Hobbs
Utterly Monkey by Nick Laird (winner)

2005
26a by Diana Evans
Brass by Helen Walsh
Eve Green by Susan Fletcher (winner)

2004
The Afterglow by Anthony Cartwright
Becoming Strangers by Louise Dean (winner)
The Sun Road by Hannah MacDonald

2003
Gaveston by Stephanie Merritt
Haweswater by Sarah Hall
If Nobody Speaks Of Remarkable Things by Jon McGregor (winner)
Negative Space by Zoë Strachan
Nightdancing by Elizabeth Garner
Politics by Adam Thirlwell

2002
A Child's Book of True Crime by Chloe Hooper
Cold Water by Gwendoline Riley
The Dark Room by Rachel Seiffert
The Earthquake Bird by Susanna Jones
The Impressionist by Hari Kunzru (winner)
My Summer of Love by Helen Cross
The World Unseen by Shamim Sarif

2001
After You'd Gone by Maggie O'Farrell
The Drink and Dream Teahouse by Justin Hill
Moth Smoke by Mohsin Hamid
Musungo Jim and the Great Chief Tuluko by Patrick Neate
White Teeth by Zadie Smith (winner)

2000
By the Shore by Galaxy Craze
The Hunter by Julia Leigh
The Requiem Shark by Nicholas Griffin
The Season Ticket by Jonathan Tulloch (winner)
Sunset Over Chocolate Mountains by Susan Elderkin

1999
In a Fishbone Church by Catherine Chidgey
In Beautiful Disguises by Rajeev Balasubramanyam
The Last King of Scotland by Giles Foden
Olympia by Dennis Bock
Three Dollars by Elliot Perlman (winner)
Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters

1998
The Cure for Death by Lightning by Gail Anderson-Dargatz
Eclipse of the Sun by Phil Whitaker
Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard by Kiran Desai (winner)
Underground by Tobias Hill
Zigzag Street by Nick Earls

1997
The Beach by Alex Garland (winner)
Beach Boy by Ardashir Vakil
Some Kind of Black by Diran Adebayo
Theory of Mind by Sanjida O'Connell

1996
Anita and Me by Meera Syal
The Debt to Pleasure by John Lanchester (winner)
The Luxury of Exile by Louis Buss
The Testimony of Taliesin Jones by Rhidian Brook

1995
Dependence Day by Robert Newman (winner)
Midnight Feast by Martina Evans
The Smell of Apples by Mark Behr
The Tennis Party by Madeleine Wickham

1994
After the Hole by Guy Burt
Divorcing Jack by Colin Bateman (winner)
Season of the Rainbirds by Nadeem Aslam

1993
Landing on Clouds by Olivia Fane
Mothers and Other Lovers by Joanna Briscoe
Pig by Andrew Cowan
Tommy Was Here by Simon Corrigan

1992
Never Mind by Edward St. Aubyn
Under the Frog by Tibor Fischer

1991
The Great English Nude by Simon Mason
Honour Thy Father by Lesley Glaister
Lives of the Saints by Nino Ricci
Quite Contrary by Suzannah Dunn
A Strange and Sublime Address by Amit Chaudhuri (winner)
Teaching Little Fang by Mark Swallow

1990
Ripley Bogle by Robert McLiam Wilson (winner)
The Vision of Elena Silves by Nicholas Shakespeare
The Wild Hunt by Elizabeth Chadwick

1989
Watercolour Sky by William Rivière

1988
Burning Your Own by Glenn Patterson
A Case of Knives by Candia McWilliam
Left of North by James Friel

1987
Hard Luck by James Maw (winner)
The Levels by Peter Benson
Lost Time by Catherine Arnold
The Pink Stallion by Lucy Pinney

1986
Family Myths and Legends by Patricia Ferguson
Mzungu's Wife by Philippa Blake
The Prodigal Father by Kate Saunders
Tongues of Flame by Tim Parks (winner)
Whore Banquets by Matthew Kneale

1985
Legacy by Susan Kay (winner)
The Standing Hills by Caroline Stickland
A Very Private Enterprise by Elizabeth Ironside

1984
The Devil's Looking-Glass by Simon Rees
A Parish of Rich Women by James Buchan
Winter Journey by Ronald Frame (winner)

Best First Book Awards

2018
All the Good Things by Clare Fisher
The City Always Wins by Omar Robert Hamilton (winner)
Mussolini's Island by Sarah Day
Strange Heart Beating by Eli Goldstone