The Longlist, Shortlist and Winners of The Desmond Elliot Prize 2018
Winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize 2018 A darkly mesmerising and fascinating epic of a tale based in India, one that is all-consuming and fiercely beautiful. A family descends into a hellish nightmare when power, greed, and corruption begin to prowl through their lives. After his mother dies, Jivan returns home ...
“The most prestigious award for 1st-time novelists” - Daily Telegraph
The longlist for the 11th annual Desmond Elliott Prize has been announced! The 10-strong collection that have made the cut this year include two Guardian journalists: Xan Brooks and Paula Cocozza and a former Sunday Times Style columnist Francesca Hornak.This year’s longlist also sees the return of Galley Beggar Press, whose books have featured as a part of the longlist for the fifth year in a row. This literary prize has been described by the Daily Telegraph as the “UK’s most prestigious award for debut novelists”. Check out the longlist below to see who is one step closer to the prize.
The Longlisted titles are:
The Clocks in This House All Tell Different Times by Xan Brooks (Salt), How to be Human by Paua Cocozza (Hutchinson), The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar (Harvil Secker), Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman (HarperCollins), Seven Days of Us by Francesca Hornak (Piatkus Books), Peculiar Ground by Lucy Hughes-Hallett (4th Estate), How Saints Die by Carment Marcus (Harvil Secker), One Star Awake by Andrew Meehan (New Island Books), Conversations With Friends by Sally Rooney (Faber & Faber), We That Are Young by Preti Taneja (Galley Beggar Press)
Desmond Elliott’s own story began in an Irish orphanage. In 1947, aged 16 and with just two pounds in his pocket, he left for England to start his publishing career at Macmillan. Thereafter, he set up as an agent and subsequently went on to establish his own publishing company, Arlington Books, in 1960. The charismatic, witty and waspish Elliott – who drank only champagne, flew regularly by Concorde and used Fortnum & Mason as his local grocer – nurtured numerous blockbuster authors, including Jilly Cooper, Anthony Horowitz and Penny Vincenzi. He died in August 2003 at the age of 73.
