Granta 163: Best of Young British Novelists 5
Every ten years, Granta dedicates an issue to the best young British novelists, showcasing the work of twenty writers under forty.
Here we present new work from the authors on the 2023 list, chosen by our panel of judges: Tash Aw, Rachel Cusk, Brian Dillon, Helen Oyeyemi and Sigrid Rausing.
With portraits by Alice Zoo and cover artwork by Donal Sturt.
Every ten years, Granta dedicates an issue to the twenty most significant British novelists under forty. Granta is thrilled to announce the fifth generation of the Best of Young British Novelists. This cohort was selected by judges Tash Aw, Rachel Cusk, Brian Dillon, Helen Oyeyemi and Sigrid Rausing.
Congratulations to Graeme Armstrong, Jennifer Atkins, Sara Baume, Sarah Bernstein, Natasha Brown, Eleanor Catton, Eliza Clark, Tom Crewe, Lauren Aimee Curtis, Camilla Grudova, Isabella Hammad, Sophie Mackintosh, Anna Metcalfe, Thomas Morris, Derek Owusu, K Patrick, Yara Rodrigues Fowler, Saba Sams, Olivia Sudjic and Eley Williams.
On 27 April 2023, Granta will publish its once-in-a-decade Best of Young British Novelists issue. Subscribe today and be among the first to discover the voices of the next generation of British literature when you read Granta 163: Best of Young British Novelists.
Looking Back on Best of Young British Novelists
On Literary Celebrity
Caryl Phillips
Caryl Phillips on being chosen as a Best of Young British Novelists in 1993 and the nascent culture of literary celebrity.
On Judging Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists
A.L. Kennedy
A.L. Kennedy on being chosen for, and judging Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists.
On the Anxieties of Translation
Ned Beauman
Ned Beauman on his translation into Assamese, and where being named one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists took him.
2013 Best of Young British Novelists
Vipers
Kamila Shamsie
‘Cover your nose and mouth, the order came, swift and useless; if they’d had their turbans they would have wound them around their faces but there were only the balaclavas.’
Boy, Snow, Bird
Helen Oyeyemi
‘I didn’t enclose a note, though there were a few things I’d have liked to say. Restraint is classier.’
2003 Best of Young British Novelists
After Caravaggio’s Sacrifice of Isaac
Rachel Cusk
‘It was right after he was born that I started looking at paintings.’
Martha, Martha
Zadie Smith
‘Outside a plane roared low like some prehistoric bird, Pam shuddered; Martha did not move.’
Helen and Julia
Sarah Waters
‘She felt exhausted, emptied out; she thought of the day that had passed—it was astonishing to her, that a single set of hours could contain so many separate states of violent feeling.’
1993 Best of Young British Novelists
Heavy Weather
Helen Simpson
‘The baby was now three months old, and she had not had more than half an hour alone since his birth in February.’
Failing to Fall
A.L. Kennedy
‘This is the one thing I know from the minute I lift the receiver and slip that voice inside my ear: it will happen.‘
The Poetics of Sex
Jeanette Winterson
‘My lover Picasso is going through her Blue Period. In the past her periods have always been red.’
1983 Best of Young British Novelists
Blow Your House Down
Pat Barker
‘There was a moment of complete silence, one of those inexplicable, simultaneous pauses in conversation that come over groups of people in a crowded room.’
The Summer After the War
Kazuo Ishiguro
‘As it was, my grandfather began helping me to paint without my having to ask him.’
The Golden Bough
Salman Rushdie
‘The same face. At every interview the same bland features. It could not be – but it was.’
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