# Costa Book Award for First Novel

The Costa Book Award for First Novel, formerly known as the Whitbread Award (1971–2006), was an annual literary award for authors' debut novels, part of the Costa Book Awards which were discontinued in 2022, the 2021 awards being the last made.

## Recipients

Costa Books of the Year are distinguished wit a blue ribbon.

### 1900s

Costa Book Award for First Novel winners and finalists, 1974–1999 :
| Year | Author | Title | |
| 1974 | Claire Tomalin | The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft | Winner |
| 1975 | Ruth Spalding | The Improbable Puritan: A Life of Bulstrode Whitelocke | Winner |
| No award presented 1976-1980 | No award presented 1976-1980 | No award presented 1976-1980 | |
| 1981 | William Boyd | A Good Man in Africa | Winner |
| 1982 | Bruce Chatwin | On the Black Hill | Winner |
| 1983 | John Fuller | Flying to Nowhere | Winner |
| 1984 | James Buchan | A Parish of Rich Women | Winner |
| 1985 | Jeanette Winterson | Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit | Winner |
| 1986 | Jim Crace | Continent | Winner |
| 1987 | Francis Wyndham | The Other Garden | Winner |
| 1988 | Paul Sayer | The Comforts of Madness | Winner |
| 1989 | James Hamilton-Paterson | Gerontius | Winner |
| 1990 | Hanif Kureishi | The Buddha of Suburbia | Winner |
| 1991 | Gordon Burn | Alma Cogan | Winner |
| 1992 | Jeff Torrington | Swing Hammer Swing! | Winner |
| 1993 | Rachel Cusk | Saving Agnes | Winner |
| 1994 | Fred D'Aguiar | The Longest Memory | Winner |
| 1995 | Kate Atkinson | Behind the Scenes at the Museum | Winner |
| 1995 | Stephen Blanchard | Gagarin & I | Shortlist |
| 1995 | Alan Warner | Morvern Callar | Shortlist |
| 1996 | John Lanchester | The Debt to Pleasure | Winner |
| 1996 | Seamus Deane | Reading In the Dark | Shortlist |
| 1996 | Georgina Hammick | The Arizona Game | Shortlist |
| 1996 | Mary Morrissy | Mother of Pearl | Shortlist |
| 1997 | Pauline Melville | The Ventriloquist's Tale | Winner |
| 1997 | Anne Haverty | One Day as a Tiger | Shortlist |
| 1997 | Mick Jackson | The Underground Man | Shortlist |
| 1997 | Ardashir Vakil | Beach Boy | Shortlist |
| 1997 | Phil Whitaker | Eclipse of the Sun | Shortlist |
| 1998 | Giles Foden | The Last King of Scotland | Winner |
| 1998 | Gavin Kramer | Shopping | Shortlist |
| 1998 | Magnus Mills | The Restraint of Beasts | Shortlist |
| 1998 | Luke Sutherland | Jelly Roll | Shortlist |
| 1999 | Tim Lott | White City Blue | Winner |
| 1999 | Suzanne Cleminshaw | The Great Ideas | Shortlist |
| 1999 | Andrew O'Hagan | Our Fathers | Shortlist |
| 1999 | Francine Stock | A Foreign Country | Shortlist |

### 2000s

Costa Book Award for First Novel winners and shortlists, 2000–2021 :
| Year | Author | Title | Result |
| 2000 | Zadie Smith | White Teeth | Winner |
| 2000 | Michel Faber | Under the Skin | Shortlist |
| 2000 | Jo-Ann Goodwin | Danny Boy | Shortlist |
| 2000 | Laura Hird | Born Free | Shortlist |
| 2001 | Sid Smith | Something Like a House | Winner |
| 2001 | Will Eaves | The Oversight | Shortlist |
| 2001 | Carl Tighe | Burning Worm | Shortlist |
| 2001 | Gerard Woodward | August | Shortlist |
| 2002 | Norman Lebrecht | The Song of Names | Winner |
| 2002 | Neil Astley | The End of My Tether | Shortlist |
| 2002 | Tariq Goddard | Homage to a Firing Squad | Shortlist |
| 2002 | Hari Kunzru | The Impressionist | Shortlist |
| 2003 | DBC Pierre | Vernon God Little | Winner |
| 2003 | Anne Donovan | Buddha Da | Shortlist |
| 2003 | Paul Murray | An Evening of Long Goodbyes | Shortlist |
| 2003 | Talitha Stevenson | An Empty Room | Shortlist |
| 2004 | Susan Fletcher | Eve Green | Winner |
| 2004 | Susanna Clarke | Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell | Shortlist |
| 2004 | Richard Collins | The Land as Viewed from the Sea | Shortlist |
| 2004 | Susan Fletcher | Eve Green | Shortlist |
| 2004 | Panos Karnezis | The Maze | Shortlist |
| 2005 | Tash Aw | The Harmony Silk Factory | Winner |
| 2005 | Diana Evans | 26a | Shortlist |
| 2005 | Peter Hobbs | The Short Day Dying | Shortlist |
| 2005 | Rachel Zadok | Gem Squash Tokoloshe | Shortlist |
| 2006 | Stef Penney | The Tenderness of Wolves | Winner |
| 2006 | Michael Cox | The Meaning of Night | Shortlist |
| 2006 | Marilyn Heward Mills | Cloth Girl | Shortlist |
| 2006 | James Scudamore | The Amnesia Clinic | Shortlist |
| 2007 | Catherine O'Flynn | What Was Lost | Winner |
| 2007 | Tahmima Anam | A Golden Age | Shortlist |
| 2007 | Nikita Lalwani | Gifted | Shortlist |
| 2007 | Roma Tearne | Mosquito | Shortlist |
| 2008 | Sadie Jones | The Outcast | Winner |
| 2008 | Poppy Adams | The Behaviour of Moths | Shortlist |
| 2008 | Tom Rob Smith | Child 44 | Shortlist |
| 2008 | Jennie Rooney | Inside the Whale | Shortlist |
| 2009 | Raphael Selbourne | Beauty | Winner |
| 2009 | Rachel Heath | The Finest Type of English Womanhood | Shortlist |
| 2009 | Peter Murphy | John the Revelator | Shortlist |
| 2009 | Ali Shaw | The Girl with Glass Feet | Shortlist |
| 2010 | Kishwar Desai | Witness the Night | Winner |
| 2010 | Nikesh Shukla | Coconut Unlimited | Shortlist |
| 2010 | Aatish Taseer | The Temple-Goers | Shortlist |
| 2010 | Simon Thirsk | Not Quite White | Shortlist |
| 2011 | Christie Watson | Tiny Sunbirds Far Away | Winner |
| 2011 | Kevin Barry | City of Bohane | Shortlist |
| 2011 | Patrick McGuinness | The Last Hundred Days | Shortlist |
| 2011 | Kerry Young | Pao | Shortlist |
| 2012 | Francesca Segal | The Innocents | Winner |
| 2012 | J. W. Ironmonger | The Notable Brain of Maximilian Ponder | Shortlist |
| 2012 | Jess Richards | Snake Ropes | Shortlist |
| 2012 | Benjamin Wood | The Bellwether Revivals | Shortlist |
| 2013 | Nathan Filer | The Shock of the Fall | Winner |
| 2013 | Sam Byers | Idiopathy | Shortlist |
| 2013 | Kate Clanchy | Meeting the English | Shortlist |
| 2013 | Sathnam Sanghera | Marriage Material | Shortlist |
| 2014 | Emma Healey | Elizabeth is Missing | Winner |
| 2014 | Carys Bray | A Song for Issy Bradley | Shortlist |
| 2014 | Mary Costello | Academy Street | Shortlist |
| 2014 | Simon Wroe | Chop Chop | Shortlist |
| 2015 | Andrew Michael Hurley | The Loney | Winner |
| 2015 | Sara Baume | Spill Simmer Falter Wither | Shortlist |
| 2015 | Kate Hamer | The Girl in the Red Coat | Shortlist |
| 2015 | Tasha Kavanagh | Things We Have in Common | Shortlist |
| 2016 | Francis Spufford | Golden Hill | Winner |
| 2016 | Maggie O'Farrell | This Must Be the Place | Shortlist |
| 2016 | Sarah Perry | The Essex Serpent | Shortlist |
| 2016 | Guinevere Glasfurd | The Words in My Hand | Shortlist |
| 2017 | Gail Honeyman | Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine | Winner |
| 2017 | Xan Brooks | The Clocks in This House All Tell Different Times | Shortlist |
| 2017 | Karl Geary | Montpelier Parade | Shortlist |
| 2017 | Rebecca F. John | The Haunting of Henry Twist | Shortlist |
| 2018 | Stuart Turton | The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle | Winner |
| 2018 | Natalie Hart | Pieces of Me | Shortlist |
| 2018 | Elisa Lodato | An Unremarkable Body | Shortlist |
| 2018 | Anne Youngson | Meet Me at the Museum | Shortlist |
| 2019 | Sara Collins | The Confessions of Frannie Langton | Winner |
| 2019 | Brian Bilston | Diary of a Somebody | Shortlist |
| 2019 | Candice Carty-Williams | Queenie | Shortlist |
| 2019 | Joanna Glen | The Other Half of Augusta Hope | Shortlist |
| 2020 | Ingrid Persaud | Love After Love | Winner |
| 2020 | Michelle Gallen | Big Girl, Small Town | Shortlist |
| 2020 | Sairish Hussain | The Family Tree | Shortlist |
| 2020 | Karen Raney | All the Water in the World | Shortlist |
| 2021 | Caleb Azumah Nelson | Open Water | Winner |
| 2021 | A. K. Blakemore | The Manningtree Witches | Shortlist |
| 2021 | Emily Itami | Fault Lines | Shortlist |
| 2021 | Kate Sawyer | The Stranding | Shortlist |