The longlist of the 2013 Guardian First Book Award was announced today, and 11 titles will compete, including Shereen El Feki’s Sex and the Citadel:
The first book award is an oddball among Anglo literary prizes in that it judges fiction and non-fiction in one bucket, and is awarded for “excellence, promise and originality,” according to Lisa Allardice, Guardian editor and chair of the judges.
The 2013 longlist for the £10,000 prize comprises five non-fiction titles, five novels and a collection of poems, which was the readers’ choice. The Shipwrecked House by Claire Trévien, a collection layered through with the metaphor of the sea, is published by independent press Penned in the Margins, and was selected by readers following a month-long nomination process.
The longlist includes NoViolet Bulawayo’s novel We Need New Names, Felix Martin’s Money: The Unauthorised Biography, and a study of bravery, Polly Morland’s The Society of Timid Souls.
El Feki recently appeared at the Edinbugh International Book Festival, where she talked about the book, saying that, “Success” would be seeing her book in Arabic, on the coffee-tables of some of the women she interviewed for it.
The winner of the Guardian’s first-book prize will be announced at a party at Tate Modern in November.
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