Ali Smith and Natasha Brown to judge 10th Goldsmiths Prize

Authors Ali Smith and Natasha Brown, the New Statesman’s Tom Gatti, and Goldsmiths Prize founder Dr Tim Parnell will form the judging panel for the 10th Goldsmiths Prize.

Launched by Goldsmiths, University of London in 2013 in association with the New Statesman, the annual £10,000 prize for fiction at its most novel recognises writing that breaks the mould, opens up new possibilities for the novel form, and embodies the spirit of invention.  

This year’s judges were announced on Wednesday 26 January. 

Dr Tim Parnell, Goldsmiths Prize Literary Director, Senior Lecturer in English in the Department of English and Creative Writing at Goldsmiths, and author of works on Laurence Sterne and Christopher Marlowe, will be chair of judges. 

He is joined by Scottish author, playwright, academic and journalist Ali Smith CBE FRSL, who won the Goldsmiths Prize, the Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Folio Prize and the Costa Novel Award in 2014 for How to be Both. Her seasonal quartet of novels responding to world-turning moments in real time was completed in 2020 with the publication of Summer. It won the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction 2021 and the inaugural Pleasure of Reading award.

Natasha Brown’s debut novel Assembly was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize in 2021 and won the Foyles Fiction Book of the Year. Brown – who worked in financial services for ten years after studying maths at university - developed Assembly after receiving a 2019 London Writers Award for literary fiction.

Tom Gatti is Executive Editor, Culture, Books and Ideas at the New Statesman. He is the editor of Long Players: Writers on the Albums That Shaped Them and previously judged the Goldsmiths Prize in 2014.

Tim Parnell said: “Since we launched in 2013, I sense a positive change in attitudes towards novelists who are not content to tread the same well-worn paths. We’ve celebrated some remarkable novels in that time and I’m looking forward to reading in search of other gems in this our tenth anniversary year.”

Ali Smith said: “The Goldsmiths Prize goes direct to the roots of new life in contemporary fiction every time, which is why it's the most vital and radical prize in the literary year.”

Tom Gatti said: “Ever since Eimear McBride won the first Goldsmiths Prize in 2013, three days into my new job at the New Statesman, I've been a follower and a fan as well as an associate and judge of an award that has celebrated most of my favourite novels of the past decade. It's a thrill and a privilege to join the judging panel again for the prize's 10th year.”

This year’s Goldsmiths Prize opens for submissions on Friday 28 January 2022. The shortlist is expected to be announced on Wednesday 5 October and the winner on Wednesday 9 November.  

Authors of any nationality are eligible for the Goldsmiths Prize provided they have been resident in the UK or Republic of Ireland for a minimum of three years and their submitted novel has been published there.  

Visit the Goldsmiths Prize website and follow @GoldsmithsPrize #GoldsmithsPrize2022 on Twitter for event news and other updates across 2022.

Previous Goldsmiths Prize winners:

2013 - Eimear McBride, A Girl Is A Half-formed Thing

2014 - Ali Smith, How to Be Both

2015 - Kevin Barry, Beatlebone

2016 - Mike McCormack, Solar Bones

2017 - Nicola Barker, H(A)PPY

2018 - Robin Robertson, The Long Take

2019 - Lucy Ellmann, Ducks Newburyport

2020 - M. John Harrison, The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again

2021 - Isabel Waidner, Sterling Karat Gold

Goldsmiths Prize 2022 key dates:

28 January – submissions open

1 April – submissions close

5 October – six-book shortlist announced

9 November – winner announced