Costa Book Awards Announce 2021 Shortlists

By LoveReading | 23rd November 2021

In this the 50th year of the Awards, today Costa announced the 2021 shortlisted author. The only major UK book prize open solely to authors resident in the UK and Ireland, these awards uniquely recognise some of the most enjoyable books published in the last year across five categories – First Novel, Novel, Biography, Poetry and Children’s Book.

Originally established in 1971, Costa Coffee took over this prestigious book prize from Whitbread in 2006.

In a bumper year for entries, the winners in the five categories each receive £5,000, and will be announced on Tuesday 4th January 2022. One of the five winning books is then selected as the overall Costa Book of the Year chosen by a nine-member panel which includes representatives from the original panels who are joined by other well-known people who love reading.

The overall winner of the 2021 Costa Book of the Year will receive £30,000 and be announced at a ceremony on Tuesday 1st February 2022.

Judges on this year’s panels (three per category) included the authors, novelists and writers Jessie Burton, Andrew Wilson and Smriti Halls; novelist, memoirist and filmmaker, Xiaolu Guo; journalists including Sarah Shaffi; poets Rishi Dastidar and Ian Duhig; podcaster Manveen Rana, and booksellers from Waterstones, Blackwell’s, The Book Hive and The Little Ripon Bookshop.

First Novel Shortlist

Fault Lines by Emily Itami

Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson

The Manningtree Witches by AK Blakemore

The Stranding by Kate Sawyer