The Betty Trask Prize and Awards are for first novels written by authors under the age of 35, who reside in a current or former Commonwealth nation. Each year the awards total £20,000, with one author receiving a larger prize amount, called the "Prize", and the remainder given to one or more other writers, called the "Awards".[1] The award was established in 1984 by the Society of Authors, at the bequest of the late Betty Trask, a reclusive author of over thirty romance novels.[2] The awards are given to traditional or romantic novels, rather than those of an experimental style, and can be for published or unpublished works.[3]
1980s
More information Year, Author ...
Betty Trask Award winners, 1984-1989
Year |
Author |
Title |
Prize |
1984 |
Ronald Frame |
Winter Journey |
£6,750 |
Clare Nonhebel |
Cold Showers |
£6,750 |
James Buchan |
A Parish of Rich Women |
£1,000 |
Helen Harris |
Playing Fields in Winter |
£1,000 |
Gareth Jones |
The Disinherited |
£1,000 |
Simon Rees |
The Devil's Looking Glass |
£1,000 |
1985 |
Susan Kay |
Legacy |
£12,500 |
Gary Armitage |
A Season of Peace |
£1,000 |
Elizabeth Ironside |
A Very Private Enterprise |
£1,000 |
Alice Mitchell |
Instead of Eden |
£1,000 |
George Schweiz |
The Earth Abides For Ever |
£1,000 |
Caroline Stickland |
The Standing Hills |
£1,000 |
1986 |
Tim Parks |
Tongues of Flame |
£9,000 |
Patricia Ferguson |
Family, Myths and Legends |
£4,500 |
Philippa Blake |
Mzungu's Wife |
£1,000 |
Matthew Kneale |
Whore Banquets |
£1,000 |
J. F. McLaughlin |
The Road to Dilmun |
£1,000 |
Kate Saunders |
The Prodigal Father |
£1,000 |
1987 |
James Maw |
Hard Luck |
£8,000 |
Peter Benson |
The Levels |
£4,500 |
Helen Flint |
Return Journey |
£4,500 |
Catherine Arnold |
Lost Time |
£1,000 |
H. S. Bhabra |
Gestures |
£1,000 |
Lucy Pinney |
The Pink Stallion |
£1,000 |
1988 |
Alex Martin |
The General Interruptor MS |
£6,500 |
Candia McWilliam |
A Case of Knives |
£6,500 |
Georgina Andrewes |
Behind the Waterfall |
£2,000 |
James Friel |
Left of North |
£2,000 |
Glenn Patterson |
Burning Your Own |
£2,000 |
Susan Webster |
Small Tales of a Town |
£2,000 |
1989 |
Nigel Watts |
The Life Game |
£10,000 |
William Riviere |
Watercolour Sky |
£5,000 |
Paul Houghton |
Harry's Last Wedding |
£2,000 |
Alasdair McKee |
Uncle Henry's Last Stand |
£2,000 |
Close
1990s
More information Year, Author ...
Betty Trask Award winners, 1990-1999
Year |
Author |
Title |
Prize |
1990 |
Robert McLiam Wilson |
Ripley Bogle |
£16,000 |
Elizabeth Chadwick |
The Wild Hunt |
£3,000 |
Rosemary Cohen |
No Strange Land |
£3,000 |
Nicholas Shakespeare |
The Vision of Elena Silves |
£3,000 |
1991 |
Amit Chaudhuri |
A Strange and Sublime Address |
£10,000 |
Mark Swallow |
Teaching Little Fang |
£7,000 |
Suzannah Dunn |
Quite Contrary |
£2,000 |
Lesley Glaister |
Honour Thy Father |
£2,000 |
Simon Mason |
The Great English Nude |
£2,000 |
Nino Ricci |
Lives of the Saints |
£2,000 |
1992 |
Peter M. Rosenburg |
Kissing Through a Pane of Glass |
£5,000 |
Tibor Fischer |
Under the Frog |
£3,000 |
Liane Jones |
The Dream Stone |
£3,000 |
Eugene Mullan |
The Last of His Line |
£3,000 |
Edward St Aubyn |
Never Mind |
£3,000 |
1993 |
Mark Blackaby |
You'll Never be Here Again |
£10,000 |
Andrew Cowan |
Pig |
£7,000 |
Simon Corrigan |
Tommy Was Here |
£5,000 |
Joanna Briscoe |
Mothers and Other Lovers |
£2,000 |
Olivia Fane |
Landing on Clouds |
£2,000 |
1994 |
Colin Bateman |
Divorcing Jack |
£12,000 |
Nadeem Aslam |
Season of the Rainbirds |
£10,000 |
Guy Burt |
After the Hole |
£1,000 |
Frances Liardet |
The Game |
£1,000 |
Jonathan Rix |
Some Hope |
£1,000 |
1995 |
Robert Newman |
Dependence Day |
£10,000 |
Mark Behr |
The Smell of Apples |
£8,000 |
Martina Evans |
Midnight Feast |
£3,000 |
Rohit Manchanda |
A Speck of Coaldust |
£1,000 |
Juliet Thomas |
Hallelujah Jordan |
£1,000 |
Philippa Walshe |
The Latecomer |
£1,000 |
Madeleine Wickham |
The Tennis Party |
£1,000 |
1996 |
John Lanchester |
The Debt to Pleasure |
£8,000 |
Meera Syal |
Anita and Me |
£7,000 |
Rhidian Brook |
The Testimony of Taliesin Jones |
£5,000 |
Louis Caron Buss |
The Luxury of Exile |
£5,000 |
1997 |
Alex Garland |
The Beach |
£12,000 |
Josie Barnard |
Poker Face |
£5,000 |
Ardashir Vakil |
Beach Boy |
£5,000 |
Diran Adebayo |
Some Kind of Black |
£1,500 |
Sanjida O'Connell |
Theory of Mind |
£1,500 |
1998 |
Kiran Desai |
Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard |
£10,000 |
Nick Earls |
Zigzag Street |
£8,000 |
Phil Whitaker |
Eclipse of the Sun |
£5,000 |
Tobias Hill |
Underground |
£1,000 |
Gail Anderson-Dargatz |
The Cure for Death by Lightning |
£1,000 |
1999 |
Elliot Perlman |
Three Dollars |
£7,000 |
Catherine Chidgey |
In a Fishbone Church |
£6,000 |
Giles Foden |
The Last King of Scotland |
£4,000 |
Dennis Bock |
Olympia |
£3,000 |
Rajeev Balasubramanyam |
In Beautiful Disguises |
£2,500 |
Sarah Waters |
Tipping the Velvet |
£1,000 |
Close
2000s
Since 2009, the Betty Trask Prize has been given to a single author; the remaining receive the Betty Trask Award. A blue ribbon () indicates the winner for that year.
More information Year, Author ...
Betty Trask Award winners, 2000-2009
Year |
Author |
Title |
Prize |
Ref. |
2000 |
Jonathan Tulloch |
The Season Ticket |
£10,000 |
|
Julia Leigh |
The Hunter |
£7,000 |
|
Susan Elderkin |
Sunset Over Chocolate Mountains |
£4,000 |
|
Galaxy Craze |
By the Shore |
£2,000 |
|
Nicholas Griffin |
The Requiem Shark |
£2,000 |
|
2001 |
Zadie Smith |
White Teeth |
£8,000 |
|
Justin Hill |
The Drink and Dream Teahouse |
£5,000 |
|
Maggie O'Farrell |
After You'd Gone |
£5,000 |
|
Vivien Kelly |
Take One Young Man |
£4,000 |
|
Mohsin Hamid |
Moth Smoke |
£2,500 |
|
Patrick Neate |
Musungu Jim and the Great Chief Tuloko |
£2,500 |
|
2002 |
Hari Kunzru |
The Impressionist |
£8,000 |
[4] |
Rachel Seiffert |
The Dark Room |
£5,000 |
|
Shamim Sarif |
The World Unseen |
£4,000 |
|
Helen Cross |
My Summer of Love |
£2,000 |
|
Chloe Hooper |
A Child's Book of True Crime |
£2,000 |
|
Susanna Jones |
The Earthquake Bird |
£2,000 |
|
Gwendoline Riley |
Cold Water |
£2,000 |
|
2003 |
Jon McGregor |
If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things |
£10,000 |
|
Sarah Hall |
Haweswater |
£6,000 |
|
Stephanie Merritt |
Gaveston |
£4,000 |
|
Elizabeth Garner |
Nightdancing |
£2,000 |
|
Zoë Strachan |
Negative Space |
£2,000 |
|
Adam Thirlwell |
Politics |
£1,000 |
|
2004 |
Louise Dean |
Becoming Strangers |
£8,000 |
|
Hannah MacDonald |
The Sun Road |
£6,000 |
|
Anthony Cartwright |
The Afterglow |
£3,000 |
|
Siddharth Dhanvant Sanghvi |
The Last Song of Dusk |
£3,000 |
|
2005 |
Susan Fletcher |
Eve Green |
£16,000 |
|
Diana Evans |
26a |
£2,000 |
|
Helen Walsh |
Brass |
£2,000 |
|
2006 |
Nick Laird |
Utterly Monkey |
£10,000 |
|
Peter Hobbs |
The Short Day Dying |
£5,000 |
|
Nicola Monaghan |
The Killing Jar |
£5,000 |
|
2007 |
Will Davis |
My Side of the Story |
£10,000 |
|
Adam Foulds |
The Truth About These Strange Times |
£2,500 |
|
Cynan Jones |
The Long Dry |
£2,500 |
|
Julie Maxwell |
You Can Live Forever |
£2,500 |
|
Karen Mcleod |
In Search of the Missing Eyelash |
£2,500 |
|
2008 |
David Szalay |
London and the South |
£10,000 |
|
Ross Raisin |
God's Own Country |
£6,000 |
|
Thomas Leveritt |
The Exchange Rate Between Love and Money |
£2,000 |
|
Anna Ralph |
The Floating Island |
£2,000 |
|
2009 |
Samantha Harvey |
The Wilderness |
£12,000 |
|
Eleanor Catton |
The Rehearsal |
£8,000 |
|
Close
2010s
More information Year, Author ...
Betty Trask Award winners, 2010-2019
Year |
Author |
Title |
Prize |
Ref. |
2010 |
Nadifa Mohamed |
Black Mamba Boy |
£10,000 |
|
Evie Wyld |
After the Fire, A Still Small Voice |
£7,000 |
|
Jenn Ashworth |
A Kind of Intimacy |
£1,500 |
|
Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani |
I Do Not Come To You By Chance |
£1,500 |
|
2011 |
Anjali Joseph |
Saraswati Park |
£10,000 |
[5] |
Laura Barton |
Twenty-One Locks |
£6,000 |
|
Simon Lelic |
Rupture |
£2,500 |
|
Robert Williams |
Luke and Jon |
£2,500 |
|
2012 |
David Whitehouse |
Bed |
£8,000 |
|
Kalinda Ashton |
The Danger Game |
£3,000 |
|
Elizabeth Day |
Scissors, Paper, Stone |
£3,000 |
|
Annabel Pitcher |
My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece |
£3,000 |
|
Emma Jane Unsworth |
Hungry the Stars and Everything |
£3,000 |
|
2013 |
Grace McCleen |
The Land of Decoration |
£8,000 |
|
Chibundu Onuzo |
The Spider King's Daughter |
£7,000 |
|
Francesca Segal |
The Innocents |
£2,500 |
|
Will Wiles |
Care of Wooden Floors |
£2,500 |
|
2014 |
Nathan Filer |
The Shock of the Fall |
£10,000 |
[6] |
NoViolet Bulawayo |
We Need New Names |
£3,750 |
|
Sam Byers |
Idiopathy |
£3,750 |
|
Mave Fellowes |
Chaplin and Company |
£3,750 |
|
Matt Greene |
Ostrich |
£3,750 |
|
2015 |
Ben Fergusson |
The Spring of Kasper Meier |
£10,000 |
[7] |
Emma Healey |
Elizabeth is Missing |
£5,000 |
|
Zoe Pilger |
Eat My Heart Out |
£5,000 |
|
Simon Wroe |
Chop Chop |
£5,000 |
|
2016 |
Alex Christofi |
Glass |
£10,000 |
[8] |
Irenosen Okojie |
Butterfly Fish |
£5,000 |
|
Natasha Pulley |
The Watchmaker of Filigree Street |
£5,000 |
|
Lucy Wood |
Wood for Weathering |
£5,000 |
|
2017 |
Daniel Shand |
Fallow |
£10,000 |
[8] |
Rowan Hisayo Buchanan |
Harmless Like You |
£3,000 |
|
Elnathan John |
Born on a Tuesday |
£3,000 |
|
Kathleen Jowitt |
Speak Its Name |
£3,000 |
|
Rob McCarthy |
The Hollow Men |
£3,000 |
|
Barney Norris |
Five Rivers Met on a Wooded Plain |
£3,000 |
|
2018 |
Omar Robert Hamilton |
The City Always Wins |
£10,000 |
|
Sarah Day |
Mussolini's Island |
£3,250 |
|
Clare Fisher |
All the Good Things |
£3,250 |
|
Eli Goldstone |
Strange Heart Beating |
£3,250 |
|
Lloyd Markham |
Bad Ideas/Chemicals |
£3,250 |
|
Masande Ntshanga |
The Reactive |
£3,250 |
|
2019 |
James Clarke |
The Litten Path |
£10,000 |
|
Samuel Fisher |
The Chameleon |
£2,700 |
|
Imogen Hermes Gowar |
The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock |
£2,700 |
|
Ruqaya Izzidien |
The Watermelon Boys |
£2,700 |
|
Daisy Lafarge |
Paul |
£2,700 |
|
Rebecca Ley |
Sweet Fruit, Sour Land |
£2,700 |
|
Sophie Mackintosh |
The Water Cure |
£2,700 |
|
Close
2020s
More information Year, Author ...
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