Tracey Thorn joins Kevin Barry, A.L. Kennedy and Naomi Wood to judge UK and Ireland's boldest fiction

Musician and writer Tracey Thorn will join award-winning novelists Kevin Barry, A.L Kennedy and Naomi Wood to judge this year’s Goldsmiths Prize - the £10,000 award created by Goldsmiths, University of London in association with the New Statesman to reward bold and original fiction.

The annual Prize is now recognised as among the UK's most significant literary awards. Open to novels written by authors from the UK and the Republic of Ireland, it has been widely acclaimed for encouraging and celebrating fiction that takes readers in new directions, reigniting interest in the novel as a fresh and exciting art form.

Tracey Thorn comments: 

“I’m thrilled to have been invited to join the Goldsmiths Prize judging panel, and I’m looking forward to reading what I’m sure will be a selection of exciting and adventurous novels."

Mike McCormack's Solar Bones, which claimed the prize in 2016, follows the recollections of a man briefly returned from the dead following the financial crisis in 2008. It unfolds in one unbroken sentence without sacrificing accessibility or impact. 

Eimear McBride's A Girl Is A Half-formed Thing was awarded the inaugural Goldsmiths Prize in 2013, a decade after being rejected by publishers. It went on to win other major awards including the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction. 

Ali Smith’s How to Be Both won in 2014, with Smith later giving credit to the Goldsmiths Prize for encouraging greater risk-taking in the publishing world. Kevin Barry’s intricately woven imagining of John Lennon’s visit to an island off the coast of Ireland to undertake primal scream therapy, Beatlebone, won in 2015.

Submission of entry forms to the Goldsmiths Prize will open on 20 January and close on 24 March. From a shortlist of six books to be announced in September, the winner will be announced on 8 November.

Chair of Judges, novelist and Lecturer in Creative Writing at Goldsmiths, Naomi Wood, says:

“I am delighted to be chairing the panel of judges in the Prize’s fifth year and am looking forward to reading the most innovative books of 2016."

Tom Gatti, culture editor of the New Statesman, says:

"The New Statesman is proud to continue its close partnership with a prize that has successfully put audacity and invention back on the literary agenda.”

Find out more on the Goldsmiths Prize website.