The novelists Helen Oyeyemi and Maddie Mortimer have been announced as judges for this year’s Goldsmiths Prize, which celebrates “fiction that breaks the mould”.
Oyeyemi is the author of ten books, including What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours and Gingerbread. Her most recent novel, Peaces, was shortlisted for last year’s Goldsmiths Prize, as was Mortimer’s debut novel, Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies, which was also longlisted for the Booker Prize and won the Desmond Elliott Prize. The judging panel will be chaired by Tom Lee, a lecturer in creative writing at Goldsmiths University and the author of a collection of short stories, Greenfly, and a novel, The Alarming Palsy of James Orr. Completing the panel is Ellen Peirson-Hagger, the New Statesman’s assistant culture editor.
Lee said: “Over the past ten years the Goldsmiths Prize has changed the literary landscape, and I am thrilled to be chairing the panel of judges as it continues to discover and celebrate the most innovative novels of 2023.”
Launched in association with the New Statesman in 2013, the Goldsmiths Prize awards the author of “a piece of fiction that breaks the mould or extends the possibilities of the novel form” with £10,000. The prize will open for submissions on 27 January and the winner will be announced in November 2023.
Last year’s Goldsmiths Prize went – for the first time – to a duo. Natasha Soobramanien and Luke Williams won for Diego Garcia (Fitzcarraldo Editions), a collaborative work that took ten years to complete. Previous winners of the prize include Eimear McBride, Ali Smith, Kevin Barry, M John Harrison and Isabel Waidner.
[See also: Why Diego Garcia is the Goldsmiths Prize winner]
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