# Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award

The Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award is a literary prize awarded to a British author under the age of 35 for a published work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry. It is administered by the Society of Authors and has been running since 1991.

## History

The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award is said here to have originally run between 1991 and 2009, but there is evidence to confirm that it began twenty years earlier. At that time entries were confined to short stories and published in the newspaper itself. The 1974 winner was Charles Nicholl, who went on to become well-known for historical biographies. "The Ups and The Downs" was Charles Nicholl's disturbing and humorous account of a bad LSD trip in London.
In 1999, Paul Farley's The Boy from the Chemist is Here to See You "was so well received", according to the Encyclopedia of British Writers, that "it was named Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award".
It was re-invigorated with the support of literary agents Peters Fraser + Dunlop in 2015 under the new name Sunday Times / Peters Fraser + Dunlop Young Writer of the Year Award.
In 2019 the University of Warwick took over as co-sponsor. The award was renamed the Sunday Times / University of Warwick Young Writer of the Year Award.

## Name history

* 1991 to 2009 – Sunday Times Young Writer Award
* Starting 2015 – Sunday Times / Peters Fraser + Dunlop Young Writer of the Year Award
* Starting 2019 – Sunday Times / University of Warwick Young Writer of the Year Award
* Starting 2021 – Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award

## Winners

| Year | Author | Title | Publisher | Award | Judges |
| 1991 | Helen Simpson | Four Bare Legs in a Bed and Other Stories | William Heinemann | Winner | |
| 1992 | Caryl Phillips | Cambridge | Bloomsbury | Winner | |
| 1993 | Simon Armitage | Xanadu: A Poem Film for Television and Kid | Bloodaxe/Faber & Faber | Winner | |
| 1994 | William Dalrymple | City of Djinns: A Year in Dehli | HarperCollins | Winner | |
| 1995 | Andrew Cowan | Pig | Michael Joseph | Winner | |
| 1996 | Katherine Pierpoint | Truffle Beds | Faber & Faber | Winner | |
| 1997 | Francis Spufford | I May Be Some Time: Ice and the English Imagination | Faber & Faber | Winner | |
| 1998 | Patrick French | Liberty or Death: India's Journey to Independence and Division | HarperCollins | Winner | |
| 1999 | Paul Farley | The Boy from the Chemist is Here to See You | Pan Macmillan | Winner | |
| 2000 | Sarah Waters | Affinity | Virago | Winner | |
| 2001 | Zadie Smith | White Teeth | Hamish Hamilton | Winner | |
| 2002 | No award made | No award made | No award made | No award made | |
| 2003 | William Fiennes | The Snow Geese | Picador Classic | Winner | |
| 2004 | Robert Macfarlane | Mountains of the Mind | Granta Books | Winner | |
| 2005 | No award made | No award made | No award made | No award made | |
| 2006 | No award made | No award made | No award made | No award made | |
| 2007 | Naomi Alderman | Disobedience | Penguin | Winner | |
| 2007 | Horatio Clare | Running for the Hills | John Murray | Shortlist | |
| 2007 | Rory Stewart | Occupational Hazards: My Time Governing in Iraq | Picador | Shortlist | |
| 2007 | John Stubbs | John Donne: The Reformed Soul | W. W. Norton & Company | Shortlist | |
| 2008 | Adam Foulds | The Truth About These Strange Times | Weidenfeld & Nicolson | Winner | |
| 2008 | Nikita Lalwani | Gifted | Viking | Shortlist | |
| 2008 | James McConnachie | The Book of Love: In Search of the Kamasutra Kama Sutra | Atlantic | Shortlist | |
| 2008 | Robert Mcfarlane | The Wild Places | Granta | Shortlist | |
| 2009 | Ross Raisin | God's Own Country | Viking | Winner | |
| 2009 | Adam Foulds | The Broken Word | Cape | Shortlist | |
| 2009 | Henry Hitchings | The Secret Life of Words: How English Became English | John Murray | Shortlist | |
| 2009 | Edward Hogan | Blackmoor | Pocket | Shortlist | |
| 2010 | No award made | No award made | No award made | No award made | |
| 2011 | No award made | No award made | No award made | No award made | |
| 2012 | No award made | No award made | No award made | No award made | |
| 2013 | No award made | No award made | No award made | No award made | |
| 2014 | No award made | No award made | No award made | No award made | |
| 2015 | Sarah Howe | Loop of Jade | Chatto & Windus | Winner | Sarah Waters, Andrew Holgate, Peter Kemp |
| 2015 | Ben Fergusson | The Spring of Kasper Meier | Little, Brown | Shortlist | Sarah Waters, Andrew Holgate, Peter Kemp |
| 2015 | Sunjeev Sahota | The Year of the Runaways | Picador | Shortlist | Sarah Waters, Andrew Holgate, Peter Kemp |
| 2015 | Sara Taylor | The Shore | William Heineman | Shortlist | Sarah Waters, Andrew Holgate, Peter Kemp |
| 2016 | Max Porter | Grief Is the Thing with Feathers | Faber & Faber | Winner | James Naughtie, Stella Tillyard, Andrew Holgate |
| 2016 | Jessie Greengrass | An Account of the Decline of the Great Auk According to One Who Saw It | John Murray Press | Shortlist | James Naughtie, Stella Tillyard, Andrew Holgate |
| 2016 | Andrew McMillan | Physical | Jonathan Cape | Shortlist | James Naughtie, Stella Tillyard, Andrew Holgate |
| 2016 | Benjamin Wood | The Ecliptic | Simon & Schuster | Shortlist | James Naughtie, Stella Tillyard, Andrew Holgate |
| 2017 | Sally Rooney | Conversations with Friends | Faber & Faber | Winner | Elif Shafak, Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Andrew Holgate |
| 2017 | Minoo Dinshaw | Outlandish Knight: The Byzantine Life of Steven Runciman | Penguin | Shortlist | Elif Shafak, Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Andrew Holgate |
| 2017 | Claire North | The End of the Day | Orbit | Shortlist | Elif Shafak, Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Andrew Holgate |
| 2017 | Julianne Pachico | The Lucky Ones | Faber & Faber | Shortlist | Elif Shafak, Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Andrew Holgate |
| 2017 | Sara Taylor | The Lauras | Windmill | Shortlist | Elif Shafak, Lucy Hughes-Hallett, Andrew Holgate |
| 2018 | Adam Weymouth | Kings of the Yukon: An Alaskan River Journey | Penguin | Winner | Kamila Shamsie, Susan Hill, Andrew Holgate |
| 2018 | Laura Freeman | The Reading Cure: How Books Restored My Appetite | Weidenfeld & Nicolson | Shortlist | Kamila Shamsie, Susan Hill, Andrew Holgate |
| 2018 | Imogen Hermes Gowar | The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock | Harvill Secker | Shortlist | Kamila Shamsie, Susan Hill, Andrew Holgate |
| 2018 | Fiona Mozley | Elmet | Hodder & Stoughton | Shortlist | Kamila Shamsie, Susan Hill, Andrew Holgate |
| 2019 | Raymond Antrobus | The Perseverance | Penned in the Margins | Winner | Kate Clanchy, Victoria Hislop, Andrew Holgate |
| 2019 | Julia Armfield | Salt Slow | Pan Macmillan | Shortlist | Kate Clanchy, Victoria Hislop, Andrew Holgate |
| 2019 | Yara Rodrigues Fowler | Stubborn Archivist | Fleet | Shortlist | Kate Clanchy, Victoria Hislop, Andrew Holgate |
| 2019 | Kim Sherwood | Testament | riverrun | Shortlist | Kate Clanchy, Victoria Hislop, Andrew Holgate |
| 2020 | Jay Bernard | Surge | Chatto & Windus | Winner | Sebastian Faulks, Tessa Hadley, Andrew Holgate |
| 2020 | Catherine Cho | Inferno: A Memoir | Bloomsbury Publishing | Shortlist | Sebastian Faulks, Tessa Hadley, Andrew Holgate |
| 2020 | Naoise Dolan | Exciting Times | Orion | Shortlist | Sebastian Faulks, Tessa Hadley, Andrew Holgate |
| 2020 | Seán Hewitt | Tongues of Fire | | Shortlist | Sebastian Faulks, Tessa Hadley, Andrew Holgate |
| 2020 | Miriam Nash | Nightingale | Bloodaxe Books | Shortlist | Sebastian Faulks, Tessa Hadley, Andrew Holgate |
| 2021 | Cal Flyn | Islands of Abandonment | | Winner | Tahmima Anam, Susan Hill, Andrew Holgate |
| 2021 | Anna Beecher | Here Comes the Miracle | Weidenfeld & Nicolson | Shortlist | Tahmima Anam, Susan Hill, Andrew Holgate |
| 2021 | Rachel Long | My Darling from the Lions | Picador | Shortlist | Tahmima Anam, Susan Hill, Andrew Holgate |
| 2021 | Caleb Azumah Nelson | Open Water | Viking | Shortlist | Tahmima Anam, Susan Hill, Andrew Holgate |
| 2021 | Megan Nolan | Acts of Desperation | Penguin Books | Shortlist | Tahmima Anam, Susan Hill, Andrew Holgate |
| 2022 | Tom Benn | Oxblood | Bloomsbury Publishing | Winner | Stig Abell, Mona Arshi, Oyinkan Braithwaite, Anne Enright, Francis Spufford, Johanna Thomas-Corr |
| 2022 | Lucy Burns | Larger Than an Orange | Penguin Books | Shortlist | Stig Abell, Mona Arshi, Oyinkan Braithwaite, Anne Enright, Francis Spufford, Johanna Thomas-Corr |
| 2022 | Maddie Mortimer | Maps of our Spectacular Bodies | Scribner | Shortlist | Stig Abell, Mona Arshi, Oyinkan Braithwaite, Anne Enright, Francis Spufford, Johanna Thomas-Corr |
| 2022 | Katherine Rundell | Super-Infinite | Macmillan | Shortlist | Stig Abell, Mona Arshi, Oyinkan Braithwaite, Anne Enright, Francis Spufford, Johanna Thomas-Corr |
| 2023 | Tom Crewe | The New Life | Simon & Schuster | Winner | Anne Enright, Mendez, James McConnachie, Daljit Nagra, Johanna Thomas-Corr, Catriona Ward |
| 2023 | Michael Magee | Close to Home | Farrar, Straus and Giroux | Shortlist | Anne Enright, Mendez, James McConnachie, Daljit Nagra, Johanna Thomas-Corr, Catriona Ward |
| 2023 | Noreen Masud | A Flat Place | Penguin Random House | Shortlist | Anne Enright, Mendez, James McConnachie, Daljit Nagra, Johanna Thomas-Corr, Catriona Ward |
| 2023 | Momtaza Mehri | Bad Diaspora Poems | Penguin Books | Shortlist | Anne Enright, Mendez, James McConnachie, Daljit Nagra, Johanna Thomas-Corr, Catriona Ward |
| 2024 | Harriet Baker | Rural Hours | |
| 2024 | Moses McKenzie | Fast by the Horns | |
| 2024 | Scott Preston | The Borrowed Hills | |
| 2024 | Ralf Webb | Strange Relations | |
No award was made in 2002, 2005 or 2006.