Meet the next generation of British writers
Introducing Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists
Every ten years since 1983, Granta magazine has appointed a panel of judges to select the twenty British novelists under the age of forty that promise to be the most significant of their generation. An anthology of their writing is published to accompany the list of novelists. Each list shines a spotlight on the literary stars of the future, announcing a set of extraordinary new talents, with new ways of seeing the world, and revealing new directions in British culture.
‘These young writers are the future of literature. Watch. History will prove me right.’– Bill Buford, editor of Granta, 1979–1995
On the 2023 judging panel were writers Tash Aw, Rachel Cusk, Brian Dillon and Helen Oyeyemi, chaired by Granta editor Sigrid Rausing.
The history of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists
Since it began in 1983, Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists selection has been seen as the barometer of Britain’s changing literary landscape. The first list featured writers like Kazuo Ishiguro, Salman Rushdie, Julian Barnes, Martin Amis and Pat Barker. Subsequent lists celebrated the work of Zadie Smith, Iain Banks, Ben Okri, Jeanette Winterson, Sarah Waters, Rachel Cusk and many more.
Explore the history of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists issues with insights from former editors Bill Buford, Ian Jack and John Freeman, as well as judges A.S. Byatt and Hilary Mantel.
What does this new generation of writers tell us about British fiction now?
To qualify for this instalment of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists selection, writers had to have been born in or after 1983, making all of them millennials. The list shows signs of a new literary culture that better represents the diversity of British society. Women dominate the list, which fully spans social classes and includes a number of writers who explore their own working-class backgrounds. The writers are geographically spread around the UK and, for the first time, authors living in the UK are included alongside British citizens.
Themes explored include: capitalism, migration, gang violence, xenophobia, surveillance, deceit, the pandemic, climate change and Ghanian folklore. The wide variety of settings include a football match in Wales, urban housing estates, and an unnamed island in a remote archipelago.
Writing in a time of anxiety, this diverse generation is strikingly unified in one way: all are interested in experimental visions of the future. This list showcases a forward-looking drive – the search for new possibilities, new alternatives, new hope.
In this content series, supported by the British Council, you will be able to discover more about the writers, hear from some of them and read or listen to extracts of their work.
Meet the novelists
Graeme Armstrong
Best of Young British Novelists 2023
‘There’s this paradoxical nostalgia where even though yi suffered, yi miss it.’
– The Cloud Factory
Jennifer Atkins
Best of Young British Novelists 2023
‘I didn’t think she was happy; I thought she was in love, but I didn’t know what that told me, if it told me anything.’
– A Certain King
Sara Baume
Best of Young British Novelists 2023
‘She has been ten for a month and she does not like it. She carries the weight of her extra digit like a chain-mail vest.’
– The Hair Baby
Sarah Bernstein
Best of Young British Novelists 2023
‘What needs explaining was that, and it was a funny thing, a very funny thing, I did not speak the language.’
– 'A Dying Tongue'
Natasha Brown
Best of Young British Novelists 2023
‘She boils her sentences down to high-sucrose sweeties and calibrates her tone for maximum engagement.’
– Universality
Eleanor Catton
Best of Young British Novelists 2023
‘I knew that Dominic had cheated on me. I couldn’t tell you when, or who, or how many times, but I was certain that he had.’
– Doubtful Sound
Eliza Clark
Best of Young British Novelists 2023
‘I could hear the sea, and I could hear my own name.’
– She's Always Hungry
Tom Crewe
Best of Young British Novelists 2023
‘There was to be an exhibition. There were lots of pictures like his, apparently – of waiters, pastry cooks, valets, bellboys.’
– The Room Service Waiter
Lauren Aimee Curtis
Best of Young British Novelists 2023
‘The other islands in the archipelago had their active volcanoes; now we had the men.’
– Strangers at the Port
Camilla Grudova
Best of Young British Novelists 2023
‘We were sent to Wakeley Boarding School aged eight for Year Five and stayed on until Year Twenty.’
– Ivor
Isabella Hammad
Best of Young British Novelists 2023
‘I register that phrase with pleasure, my brother.’
– A Note in the Margin
Sophie Mackintosh
Best of Young British Novelists 2023
‘The monstrous years of my late teens lay lined up alongside the rest of my life like bullets in a gun.’
– Theories of Care
Anna Metcalfe
Best of Young British Novelists 2023
‘He was grumpy in a way that I enjoyed. It reassured me that he was easily displeased – he was discerning, I thought.’
– Circles
Thomas Morris
Best of Young British Novelists 2023
‘If Wales win tonight, everything will turn out okay.’
– Wales
Derek Owusu
Best of Young British Novelists 2023
‘I don’t remember his face, nor him as a whole.’
– Kweku
K Patrick
Best of Young British Novelists 2023
‘Without waiting for me she removes her white shirt. Each button a piece of my own spine, undone.’
– Mrs S
Yara Rodrigues Fowler
Best of Young British Novelists 2023
‘She rings a tiny cymbal over your body. She says, The experience is finished now.’
– Best Last Minute Spa Deal for Under £40
Saba Sams
Best of Young British Novelists 2023
‘I followed him onto the dancefloor and he put his hands on my hips as if he’d known me for at least an hour.’
– Gunk
Olivia Sudjic
Best of Young British Novelists 2023
‘It dawned on her, the fact sliding ice-cold into her body; now that she had crossed the border into her forties, Alma herself was no longer eligible for the scheme.’
– The Termite Queen
Eley Williams
Best of Young British Novelists 2023
‘Certainly this kind of thing just happened sometimes – it was a glitch, an unfortunate error, and could happen to anyone.’
– Rostrum
Supported by the British Council
The British Council is the UK’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities. We support peace and prosperity by building connections, understanding and trust between people in the UK and countries worldwide. We do this through our work in arts and culture, education and the English language. We work with people in over 200 countries and territories and are on the ground in more than 100 countries. In 2022–23 we reached 600 million people.
