Betty Trask Prize and Awards

Annual awards from the Society of Authors for a first novel by a writer under 35, paid for by a bequest the romantic novelist Betty Trask left to the Society in 1983. The novel may be published or unpublished and should be romantic or traditional in style rather than experimental; its author must be a British national or have lived in the UK or the Commonwealth for three years. Each year one writer usually receives the larger Prize and the others share the Awards. They were first given in 1984.

2025

Prize

• Winter Animals by Ashani Lewis

Awards

• I Died at Fallow Hall by Bonnie Burke-Patel
• Gender Theory by Madeline Docherty
• Fragile Animals by Genevieve Jagger
• Whale Fall by Elizabeth O'Connor
• England Is Mine by Nicolas Padamsee

2024

Prize

• The New Life by Tom Crewe

Awards

• The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa by Stephen Buoro
• Lazy City by Rachel Connolly
• Neon Roses by Rachel Dawson
• Our Hideous Progeny by C.E. McGill
• Whaling by Nathan Munday

2023

Prize

• Mercia's Take by Daniel Wiles

Awards

• My Name Is Yip by Paddy Crewe
• A Very Nice Girl by Imogen Crimp
• Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies by Maddie Mortimer

2022

Prize

• In by Will McPhail

Awards

• The Manningtree Witches by A.K. Blakemore
• Assembly by Natasha Brown
• Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson
• Acts of Desperation by Megan Nolan

2021

Prize

• The Last Good Man by Thomas McMullan

Awards

• The Young Team by Graeme Armstrong
• Bad Love by Maame Blue
• The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
• The Liar’s Dictionary by Eley Williams
• The Water House by Nneoma Ike-Njoku

2020

Prize

• Hitch by Kathryn Hind

Awards

• The Familiars by Stacey Halls
• The Parisian by Isabella Hammad
• The Private Joys of Nnenna Maloney by Okeychukwu Nzelu

2019

Prize

• The Litten Path by James Clarke

Awards

• The Chameleon by Samuel Fisher
• The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar
• The Watermelon Boys by Ruqaya Izzidien
• Paul by Daisy Lafarge
• Sweet Fruit, Sour Land by Rebecca Ley
• The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh

2018

Prize

• The City Always Wins by Omar Robert Hamilton

Awards

• Mussolini's Island by Sarah Day
• All the Good Things by Clare Fisher
• Strange Heart Beating by Eli Goldstone
• Bad Ideas/Chemicals by Lloyd Markham
• The Reactive by Masande Ntshanga

2017

Prize

• Fallow by Daniel Shand

Awards

• Harmless Like You by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan
• Born on a Tuesday by Elnathan John
• Speak Its Name by Kathleen Jowitt
• The Hollow Men by Rob McCarthy
• Five Rivers Met on a Wooded Plain by Barney Norris

2016

Prize

• Glass by Alex Christofi

Awards

• Butterfly Fish by Irenosen Okojie
• The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley
• Wood for Weathering by Lucy Wood

2015

Prize

• The Spring of Kasper Meier by Ben Fergusson

Awards

• Elizabeth Is Missing by Emma Healey
• Eat My Heart Out by Zoe Pilger
• Chop Chop by Simon Wroe

2014

Prize

• The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer

Awards

• We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo
• Idiopathy by Sam Byers
• Chaplin and Company by Mave Fellowes
• Ostrich by Matt Greene

2013

Prize

• The Land of Decoration by Grace McCleen

Awards

• The Spider King's Daughter by Chibundu Onuzo
• The Innocents by Francesca Segal
• Care of Wooden Floors by Will Wiles

2012

Prize

• Bed by David Whitehouse

Awards

• The Danger Game by Kalinda Ashton
• Scissors, Paper, Stone by Elizabeth Day
• My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece by Annabel Pitcher
• Hungry the Stars and Everything by Emma Jane Unsworth

2011

Prize

• Saraswati Park by Anjali Joseph

Awards

• Twenty-One Locks by Laura Barton
• Rupture by Simon Lelic
• Luke and Jon by Robert Williams

2010

Prize

• Black Mamba Boy by Nadifa Mohamed

Awards

• After the Fire, A Still Small Voice by Evie Wyld
• A Kind of Intimacy by Jenn Ashworth
• I Do Not Come to You By Chance by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani

2009

Prize

• The Wilderness by Samantha Harvey

Awards

• The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton

2008

Prize

• London and the South-East by David Szalay

Awards

• God's Own Country by Ross Raisin
• The Exchange Rate Between Love and Money by Thomas Leveritt
• The Floating Island by Anna Ralph

2007

Prize

• My Side of the Story by Will Davis

Awards

• The Truth About These Strange Times by Adam Foulds
• The Long Dry by Cynan Jones
• You Can Live Forever by Julie Maxwell
• In Search of the Missing Eyelash by Karen McLeod

2006

Prize

• Utterly Monkey by Nick Laird

Awards

• The Short Day Dying by Peter Hobbs
• The Killing Jar by Nicola Monaghan

2005

Prize

• Eve Green by Susan Fletcher

Awards

• 26a by Diana Evans
• Brass by Helen Walsh

2004

Prize

• Becoming Strangers by Louise Dean

Awards

• The Sun Road by Hannah MacDonald
• The Afterglow by Anthony Cartwright
• The Last Song of Dusk by Siddharth Dhanvant Sanghvi

2003

Prize

• If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things by Jon McGregor

Awards

• Haweswater by Sarah Hall
• Gaveston by Stephanie Merritt
• Nightdancing by Elizabeth Garner
• Negative Space by Zoë Strachan
• Politics by Adam Thirlwell

2002

Prize

• The Impressionist by Hari Kunzru

Awards

• The Dark Room by Rachel Seiffert
• The World Unseen by Shamim Sarif
• My Summer of Love by Helen Cross
• A Child's Book of True Crime by Chloe Hooper
• The Earthquake Bird by Susanna Jones
• Cold Water by Gwendoline Riley

2001

Prize

• White Teeth by Zadie Smith

Awards

• The Drink and Dream Teahouse by Justin Hill
• After You'd Gone by Maggie O'Farrell
• Take One Young Man by Vivien Kelly
• Moth Smoke by Mohsin Hamid
• Musungu Jim and the Great Chief Tuloko by Patrick Neate

2000

Prize

• The Season Ticket by Jonathan Tulloch

Awards

• The Hunter by Julia Leigh
• Sunset Over Chocolate Mountains by Susan Elderkin
• By the Shore by Galaxy Craze
• The Requiem Shark by Nicholas Griffin

1999

Prize

• Three Dollars by Elliot Perlman

Awards

• In a Fishbone Church by Catherine Chidgey
• The Last King of Scotland by Giles Foden
• Olympia by Dennis Bock
• In Beautiful Disguises by Rajeev Balasubramanyam
• Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters

1998

Prize

• Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard by Kiran Desai

Awards

• Zig Zag Street by Nick Earls
• Eclipse of the Sun by Phil Whitaker
• Underground by Tobias Hill
• The Cure for Death by Lightning by Gail Anderson-Dargatz

1997

Prize

• The Beach by Alex Garland

Awards

• Poker Face by Josie Barnard
• Beach Boy by Ardashir Vakil
• Some Kind of Black by Diran Adebayo
• Theory of Mind by Sanjida O'Connell

1996

Prize

• The Debt to Pleasure by John Lanchester

Awards

• Anita and Me by Meera Syal
• The Testimony of Taliesin Jones by Rhidian Brook
• The Luxury of Exile by Louis Caron Buss

1995

Prize

• Dependence Day by Robert Newman

Awards

• The Smell of Apples by Mark Behr
• Midnight Feast by Martina Evans
• A Speck of Coaldust by Rohit Manchanda
• Hallelujah Jordan by Juliet Thomas
• The Latecomer by Philippa Walshe
• The Tennis Party by Madeleine Wickham

1994

Prize

• Divorcing Jack by Colin Bateman

Awards

• Season of the Rainbirds by Nadeem Aslam
• After the Hole by Guy Burt
• The Game by Frances Liardet
• Some Hope by Jonathan Rix

1993

Prize

• You'll Never be Here Again by Mark Blackaby

Awards

• Pig by Andrew Cowan
• Tommy Was Here by Simon Corrigan
• Mothers and Other Lovers by Joanna Briscoe
• Landing on Clouds by Olivia Fane

1992

Prize

• Kissing Through a Pane of Glass by Peter M. Rosenburg

Awards

• Under the Frog by Tibor Fischer
• The Dream Stone by Liane Jones
• The Last of His Line by Eugene Mullan
• Never Mind by Edward St Aubyn

1991

Prize

• A Strange and Sublime Address by Amit Chaudhuri

Awards

• Teaching Little Fang by Mark Swallow
• Quite Contrary by Suzannah Dunn
• Honour Thy Father by Lesley Glaister
• The Great English Nude by Simon Mason
• Lives of the Saints by Nino Ricci

1990

Prize

• Ripley Bogle by Robert McLiam Wilson

Awards

• The Wild Hunt by Elizabeth Chadwick
• No Strange Land by Rosemary Cohen
• The Vision of Elena Silves by Nicholas Shakespeare

1989

Prize

• The Life Game by Nigel Watts

Awards

• Watercolour Sky by William Riviere
• Harry's Last Wedding by Paul Houghton
• Uncle Henry's Last Stand by Alasdair McKee

1988

Prize

• The General Interruptor MS by Alex Martin
• A Case of Knives by Candia McWilliam

Awards

• Behind the Waterfall by Georgina Andrewes
• Left of North by James Friel
• Burning Your Own by Glenn Patterson
• Small Tales of a Town by Susan Webster

1987

Prize

• Hard Luck by James Maw

Awards

• The Levels by Peter Benson
• Return Journey by Helen Flint
• Lost Time by Catherine Arnold
• Gestures by H.S. Bhabra
• The Pink Stallion by Lucy Pinney

1986

Prize

• Tongues of Flame by Tim Parks

Awards

• Family, Myths and Legends by Patricia Ferguson
• Mzungu's Wife by Philippa Blake
• Whore Banquets by Matthew Kneale
• The Road to Dilmun by J.F. McLaughlin
• The Prodigal Father by Kate Saunders

1985

Prize

• Legacy by Susan Kay

Awards

• A Season of Peace by Gary Armitage
• A Very Private Enterprise by Elizabeth Ironside
• Instead of Eden by Alice Mitchell
• The Earth Abides For Ever by George Schweiz
• The Standing Hills by Caroline Stickland

1984

Prize

• Winter Journey by Ronald Frame
• Cold Showers by Clare Nonhebel

Awards

• A Parish of Rich Women by James Buchan
• Playing Fields in Winter by Helen Harris
• The Disinherited by Gareth Jones
• The Devil's Looking Glass by Simon Rees