At a time when cracking open a bottle of the best bubbly and curling up with a laugh-out-loud novel seems more appealing than ever, the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction 2024 announced their 2024 winner last night from an incredible shortlist of fantastically funny reads.

This year's prize (and pig naming rights of course!) was awarded to Ferdia Lennon for his exquisitely unique and funny debut Glorious Exploits, at a ceremony this evening at 10-11 Carlton House Terrace in Central London.

The award is the UK’s longest running prize for comic fiction and is designed to highlight the funniest novel of the past twelve months, which best evokes the Wodehouse spirit of witty characters and perfectly timed comic prose. 2025 will mark the 25th anniversary of the award.

The winner was chosen from a shortlist of seven very different titles – ranging from steampunk fantasy to romantic comedy, with a bit of time travel thrown in – that together showcase the very best ingredients of comic fiction writing, from jokes, farce, and satire, to spiced wit and wry humour.

Lennon receives a jeroboam of Bollinger Special Cuvée, a case of Bollinger La Grande Année, the complete set of the Everyman’s Library P.G. Wodehouse collection, and a Gloucester Old Spot pig named after his winning book.

Described by Roddy Doyle as “a very special, very clever, very entertaining novel”, by Douglas Stuart as “bold and totally unexpected”, and LoveReading's Liz Robinson described it as "an original, fascinating, and focused novel that explores the brutality of war and brotherhood of men during the Peloponnesian War in 412BC." In January 2024 we awarded it a Liz Robinson Pick and a Debut of the Month; the paperback arrives in January 2025.

Ferdia Lennon was born and raised in Dublin to an Irish mother and Libyan father. He holds a BA in History and Classics from University College Dublin and an MA in Prose Fiction from the University of East Anglia. His short stories have appeared in publications such as the Irish Times and the Stinging Fly. In 2019 and 2021, he received a Literature Bursary Award from the Arts Council of Ireland. After spending many years in Paris, he now lives in Norwich with his wife and son. Glorious Exploits is his debut novel.

Ferdia Lennon, winner of this year’s prize, said: “I was stunned and utterly delighted to get the news. This is a prize I have followed for years, and so many books I love have won or been shortlisted for it. I’m truly honoured that the judges gave me the nod amongst such a brilliant shortlist. For Samuel Beckett, the act of writing was the placing of stains on silence and nothingness. For me, it has always been more of a means to secure pig naming rights, so I am very pleased indeed.”

Peter Florence, Chair of the Judges, commented: “What a great year this has been. We were delighted with the shortlist and we’re thrilled with the winner. Glorious Exploits is a delightful mash of contemporary Irish comedy and classical Athenian tragedy. It’s a caper, a buddy story, and it had us all laughing and cheering Ferdia Lennon's comic spirit."

Victoria Carfantan, Director of Champagne Bollinger, Group Bollinger UK; Global Partnerships, added: “We are very proud of our long-standing relationship supporting the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction. It is such an important award celebrating some of the most talented names in the genre and I am delighted to extend my congratulations to Ferdia Lennon and his novel Glorious Exploits as this year’s winner.”

The judges for this year’s prize are: David Campbell (publisher, Everyman’s Library), Peter Florence (Director of The Conversation at St Martin in the Fields), Pippa Evans (comedian), Sindhu Vee (comedian), James Naughtie (broadcaster and author), and Justin Albert (Vice Chair, University of Wales; Chair, Rewilding Britain; and Advisor to the Hay Festivals).

The other 2024 shortlisted titles were: A Beginner’s Guide to Breaking and Entering by Andrew Hunter Murray, Good Material by Dolly Alderton, High Vaultage by Chris Sugden and Jen Sugden, The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley, The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue, published by Virago (Hachette); and You Are Here by David Nicholls. Find out more about the full 2024 shortlist.

Previous winners of the prize were:

Bob Mortimer for The Satsuma Complex (2023)

Percival Everett for The Trees (2022)

Guy Kennaway for The Accidental Collector (2021)

Matthew Dooley for Flake (2020) 

Nina Stibbe for Reasons to be Cheerful (2019) 

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