Costa Book Award for First Novel

The Costa Book Award for First Novel, formerly known as the Whitbread Award (1971–2006), was an annual literary award for authors' debut novels, part of the Costa Book Awards which were discontinued in 2022, the 2021 awards being the last made.^[1]

Recipients

Costa Books of the Year are distinguished with a blue ribbon ().

1900s

Costa Book Award for First Novel winners and finalists, 1974–1999^[2]

Year	Author	Title		Ref.
1974	Claire Tomalin	The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft	Winner
1975	Ruth Spalding	The Improbable Puritan: A Life of Bulstrode Whitelocke	Winner
No award presented 1976-1980
1981	William Boyd	A Good Man in Africa	Winner
1982	Bruce Chatwin	On the Black Hill	Winner
1983	John Fuller	Flying to Nowhere	Winner
1984	James Buchan	A Parish of Rich Women	Winner
1985	Jeanette Winterson	Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit	Winner
1986	Jim Crace	Continent	Winner
1987	Francis Wyndham	The Other Garden	Winner
1988	Paul Sayer	The Comforts of Madness	Winner
1989	James Hamilton-Paterson	Gerontius	Winner
1990	Hanif Kureishi	The Buddha of Suburbia	Winner
1991	Gordon Burn	Alma Cogan	Winner
1992	Jeff Torrington	Swing Hammer Swing!	Winner
1993	Rachel Cusk	Saving Agnes	Winner
1994	Fred D'Aguiar	The Longest Memory	Winner
1995	Kate Atkinson	Behind the Scenes at the Museum	Winner
	Stephen Blanchard	Gagarin & I	Shortlist
	Alan Warner	Morvern Callar
1996	John Lanchester	The Debt to Pleasure	Winner
	Seamus Deane	Reading In the Dark	Shortlist
	Georgina Hammick	The Arizona Game
	Mary Morrissy	Mother of Pearl
1997	Pauline Melville	The Ventriloquist's Tale	Winner
	Anne Haverty	One Day as a Tiger	Shortlist
	Mick Jackson	The Underground Man
	Ardashir Vakil	Beach Boy
	Phil Whitaker	Eclipse of the Sun
1998	Giles Foden	The Last King of Scotland	Winner
	Gavin Kramer	Shopping	Shortlist
	Magnus Mills	The Restraint of Beasts
	Luke Sutherland	Jelly Roll
1999	Tim Lott	White City Blue	Winner
	Suzanne Cleminshaw	The Great Ideas	Shortlist
	Andrew O'Hagan	Our Fathers
	Francine Stock	A Foreign Country

2000s

Costa Book Award for First Novel winners and shortlists, 2000–2021

Year	Author	Title	Result	Ref.
2000	Zadie Smith	White Teeth	Winner	[2]
	Michel Faber	Under the Skin	Shortlist
	Jo-Ann Goodwin	Danny Boy
	Laura Hird	Born Free
2001	Sid Smith	Something Like a House	Winner	[2]
	Will Eaves	The Oversight	Shortlist
	Carl Tighe	Burning Worm
	Gerard Woodward	August
2002	Norman Lebrecht	The Song of Names	Winner	[2]
	Neil Astley	The End of My Tether	Shortlist
	Tariq Goddard	Homage to a Firing Squad
	Hari Kunzru	The Impressionist
2003	DBC Pierre	Vernon God Little	Winner	[2]
	Anne Donovan	Buddha Da	Shortlist
	Paul Murray	An Evening of Long Goodbyes
	Talitha Stevenson	An Empty Room
2004	Susan Fletcher	Eve Green	Winner	[2]
	Susanna Clarke	Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell	Shortlist
	Richard Collins	The Land as Viewed from the Sea
	Susan Fletcher	Eve Green
	Panos Karnezis	The Maze
2005	Tash Aw	The Harmony Silk Factory	Winner	[2]
	Diana Evans	26a	Shortlist
	Peter Hobbs	The Short Day Dying
	Rachel Zadok	Gem Squash Tokoloshe
2006	Stef Penney	The Tenderness of Wolves	Winner	[2]
	Michael Cox	The Meaning of Night	Shortlist	[3]
	Marilyn Heward Mills	Cloth Girl
	James Scudamore	The Amnesia Clinic
2007	Catherine O'Flynn	What Was Lost	Winner	[2][4]
	Tahmima Anam	A Golden Age	Shortlist
	Nikita Lalwani	Gifted
	Roma Tearne	Mosquito
2008	Sadie Jones	The Outcast	Winner	[2][5]
	Poppy Adams	The Behaviour of Moths	Shortlist
	Tom Rob Smith	Child 44
	Jennie Rooney	Inside the Whale
2009	Raphael Selbourne	Beauty	Winner	[6]
	Rachel Heath	The Finest Type of English Womanhood	Shortlist
	Peter Murphy	John the Revelator
	Ali Shaw	The Girl with Glass Feet
2010	Kishwar Desai	Witness the Night	Winner	[7][8]
	Nikesh Shukla	Coconut Unlimited	Shortlist
	Aatish Taseer	The Temple-Goers
	Simon Thirsk	Not Quite White
2011	Christie Watson	Tiny Sunbirds Far Away	Winner	[9][10]
	Kevin Barry	City of Bohane	Shortlist	[11]
	Patrick McGuinness	The Last Hundred Days
	Kerry Young	Pao
2012	Francesca Segal	The Innocents	Winner	[12][13]
	J. W. Ironmonger	The Notable Brain of Maximilian Ponder	Shortlist
	Jess Richards	Snake Ropes
	Benjamin Wood	The Bellwether Revivals
2013	Nathan Filer	The Shock of the Fall	Winner	[14][15][16]
	Sam Byers	Idiopathy	Shortlist	[17][18]
	Kate Clanchy	Meeting the English
	Sathnam Sanghera	Marriage Material
2014	Emma Healey	Elizabeth is Missing	Winner	[19][20][21]
	Carys Bray	A Song for Issy Bradley	Shortlist	[22][23]
	Mary Costello	Academy Street
	Simon Wroe	Chop Chop
2015	Andrew Michael Hurley	The Loney	Winner	[24]
	Sara Baume	Spill Simmer Falter Wither	Shortlist	[25]
	Kate Hamer	The Girl in the Red Coat
	Tasha Kavanagh	Things We Have in Common
2016	Francis Spufford	Golden Hill	Winner	[26]
	Maggie O'Farrell	This Must Be the Place	Shortlist	[27]
	Sarah Perry	The Essex Serpent
	Guinevere Glasfurd	The Words in My Hand
2017	Gail Honeyman	Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine	Winner	[28]
	Xan Brooks	The Clocks in This House All Tell Different Times	Shortlist	[29][30]
	Karl Geary	Montpelier Parade
	Rebecca F. John	The Haunting of Henry Twist
2018	Stuart Turton	The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle	Winner	[31][32]
	Natalie Hart	Pieces of Me	Shortlist	[33]
	Elisa Lodato	An Unremarkable Body
	Anne Youngson	Meet Me at the Museum
2019	Sara Collins	The Confessions of Frannie Langton	Winner	[34][35]
	Brian Bilston	Diary of a Somebody	Shortlist	[36]
	Candice Carty-Williams	Queenie
	Joanna Glen	The Other Half of Augusta Hope
2020	Ingrid Persaud	Love After Love	Winner	[37]
	Michelle Gallen	Big Girl, Small Town	Shortlist	[38]
	Sairish Hussain	The Family Tree
	Karen Raney	All the Water in the World
2021	Caleb Azumah Nelson	Open Water	Winner	[39][40]
	A. K. Blakemore	The Manningtree Witches	Shortlist	[41]
	Emily Itami	Fault Lines
	Kate Sawyer	The Stranding