Goldsmiths Prize 2024 Shortlist Names Six Experimental

Six writers have been shortlisted for the £10,000 Goldsmiths prize, awarded to fiction that breaks the mould or extends the possibilities of the novel form. The contenders are Missouri Williams, China Miéville, Polly Barton, Doireann Ní Ghríofa, Keith Ridgway and Aea Varfis-Van Warmelo.

Missouri Williams is nominated for her Booker-longlisted novel The Vivisectors, set in an unnamed university town where a power struggle erupts between academics and gardeners. China Miéville’s shortlisted work is The Rouse, a 1,200-page paranormal novel that took two decades to write. Polly Barton’s debut, What Am I, a Deer?, follows a young woman who moves to Frankfurt to work for a video-game company and becomes fixated on a man she sees during her commute.

Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s Said the Dead excavates the history of women incarcerated in a Cork asylum. Keith Ridgway’s Dooneen depicts social unrest in Dublin. Aea Varfis-Van Warmelo’s Attention-Seeking Behaviour blends fiction, memoir and essay through the voice of a compulsive liar.

Context

Now in its 14th year, the prize was launched in 2013 in association with the New Statesman. The judging panel is chaired by Francis Spufford, the novelist and professor of creative writing at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is joined by writer and translator Kate Briggs, novelist Hari Kunzru, and journalist David Sexton, a former literary editor of the Evening Standard.

Spufford said the judges found 'newness of many different kinds' in this year’s submissions and enjoyed being challenged. Tanjil Rashid, culture editor at the New Statesman, noted that a spirit of experimentation is central to the novel's appeal. "All of these books have that," he said.

Critical Response

Early reviews have praised the shortlisted works for their intensity and formal daring. In a Guardian review, Ian Maleney wrote that Williams writes with a 'singular brand of Ballardian ferocity, she revels in the wretched and the craven.' Stuart Kelly, also in the Guardian, described Miéville’s The Rouse as 'affecting, intelligent and, in more than one place, very, very frightening.'

Barton’s novel was characterised as a piercing study of yearning and the modern condition. Brian Dillon’s Guardian review called Ní Ghríofa’s book a work of extraordinary formal and ethical force. David Sexton said Attention-Seeking Behaviour brings 'brio worthy of a Muriel Spark heroine' to its narration. Michael Donkor’s Guardian review described Ridgway’s Dooneen as an appealingly labyrinthine novel featuring wonderfully absorbing and offbeat comedy.

What Comes Next

The winner will be announced at a ceremony at Foyles on Charing Cross Road in London on 4 November. Last year’s prize was won by CD Rose for We Live Here Now. The award’s previous winners include Rachel Cusk, Eimear McBride, Ali Smith, Isabel Waidner and Benjamin Myers.

Francis Spufford summarised the prize's mission. "The Goldsmiths prize exists to remind us that the novel, as the name suggests, is new." The 2024 winner will be revealed in November.