Though there were four debuts on the Booker shortlist, it's been more than a decade since a debut won. And with two magisterial novels from established writers in Maaza Mengiste's The Shadow King and Tsitsi Dangarembga's This Mournable Body on the list, first-timer Douglas Stuart's success may come as a surprise. Read more
The Nigerian-American author won the Orange Prize in 2007 and her ‘Half of a Yellow Sun' has been voted the best of the Women's Prize's 25 years of winners.
Two African women are in the running for the 2020 Booker Prize, in a historic first for the UK's most prestigious literary prize - and a major boost for storytellers on the continent.
Hilary Mantel will not win a third Booker prize with the final novel in her Thomas Cromwell trilogy, after American writers made a near clean sweep of this year's shortlist.
Critically acclaimed author Irenosen Okojie has won the AKO Caine prize for African writing, crediting her win with giving her "extra confidence" as a black, female experimental writer who has felt she was "operating on the fringes". Read more
Do you find it as obvious as I do that Don DeLillo richly deserves to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature? And right away, as in this year? Read more
'Booksellers have had many years of making themselves resilient, having had to live through the advent and growth of Amazon - they are entrepreneurial and hard-working, resourceful and creative.
Fifteen years ago, the once powerful book publisher Judith Regan, ruler of her own imprint at Rupert Murdoch's HarperCollins, embarked on a project of dubious distinction. Somehow she convinced O.J. Simpson to get on board with a mea culpa manqué about the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. It would be called If I Did It, and it had the makings of a blockbuster. Read more
The rest of the publishing world should be fifty shades of envious.
On Friday, Sourcebooks announced that they are launching a new imprint with E.L. James. What's more, the author behind the hit Fifty Shades trilogy and The Mister is bringing her entire publishing catalog with her. Read more
In 2016, we had been open for one intense and educational year as the only romance-focused bookstore in the country. After one year of building a community of romance-loving customers, it became abundantly clear to us that readers were looking for more racial diversity in their romance novels. Read more
The acclaimed author Marieke Lucas Rijneveld has pulled out of translating Amanda Gorman's poetry into Dutch, after their publisher was criticised for picking a writer for the role who was not also Black. 'My family are too frightened to read my book': meet Europe's most exciting authors Read more Read more
Are you serious about putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and finally starting that novel idea you've had for years? Costa and Orange Prize shortlisted writer Monique Roffey offers her top five tips for getting the best out of your writing process - including finding your personal rhythm, getting into the habit of drafting and how to edit successfully.
Young authors may be self-censoring because they worry they will be "trolled" or "cancelled", according to celebrated writer Sir Kazuo Ishiguro.
Sir Kazuo, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2017, warned that a "climate of fear" was preventing some people from writing what they want. Read more
When I first met my agent 10 years ago, I told her about a book I wanted to write about a lighthouse. I had the set-up in mind - a mystery based on the real-life vanishing of three keepers from the Flannan Isles in 1900 - but hadn't worked out yet how to tell it, if I even had it in me to write a novel, or if what I wrote would be any good. Read more
I've been a huge fan of Jeff VanderMeer's fiction since his noir fantasy novel Finch. In the years since, I've grown to admire-and envy-his range as an author, along with the depth of his imagination and his ability to send chills down my spine while enthralling me with his prose.
It's a tough decision for a writer to make, one of the toughest. All your life you've fantasized about one of the big New York publishers buying your book and its subsequent astronomical launch into the stratosphere. But it hasn't happened yet in spite of your eating, sleeping, and researching the craft of writing for years. Read more
Open to writers of any nationality writing in English
Entry fee for Best Unpublished Novel £49
Prize:
£15,000 for Best Unpublished Novel, an advance on a publishing deal with Bonnier and £10,000 for Best Published Novel
Submissions for the two 2021 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prizes are now open. The international prize is now in its sixth year. Entries are accepted from writers of any nationality, writing in English. The deadline is 7 March. Read more
I have discovered that I cannot burn a candle at one end and write a book with the other.'
'Coleridge was a drug addict. Poe was an alcoholic. Marlowe was stabbed by a man whom he was treacherously trying to stab. Pope took money to keep a woman's name out of a satire; then wrote a piece so that she could still be recognized anyhow. Chatterton killed himself. Byron was accused of incest. Do you still want to be a writer -and if so, why?