Sebastian Faulks, Kit de Waal, Tessa Hadley and Houman Barekat to judge 2020 Sunday Times / University of Warwick Young Writer of the Year Award Times

The UK and Ireland’s unrivalled spotter of emerging literary talent, The Sunday Times / University of Warwick Young Writer of the Year Award, has signed up a blockbuster judging panel for its 2020 edition: the best-selling novelist Sebastian Faulks; the writer, editor and co-founder of The Big Book Weekend, Kit de Waal; Tessa Hadley, award-winning author of novels, short stories and non-fiction; and the writer, critic and Review 31 founding editor Houman Barekat are joining Sunday Times literary editor Andrew Holgate to decide who will follow last year’s winner, Raymond Antrobus.

Submissions have streamed in steadily since the award — for the best British or Irish writer of 35 or under — opened for digital-only entries last month, and are still being accepted until 22 June. The shortlist will be announced on 1 November; the winner on 10 December.

Sebastian Faulks said: “I’m interested to see if young writers can stand outside their personal experience and the concerns of the present day. What I’m hoping for in the submissions for the Young Writer of the Year Award are style, attention to words, the sense that even if it reads smoothly it has been ferociously worked at.”

Tessa Hadley said: “Whenever I’ve judged a competition, it’s forced me out of my comfort zone, got me reading the fiction and poetry and non-fiction I might not have picked up otherwise, seeing slices of worlds unlike mine. This should be especially true of reading new young writers. I’m hoping for something that feels true and inevitable, expressed in language that’s as clean and strong as possible.”

Kit de Waal said: “I’m interested in what people will do about the low level hum of panic and how that will effect their writing. I’m hoping that we won’t see a rash of virus or pandemic stories. It’s too soon for that by about ten years. I am hoping to see something from the gut, something visceral and yearning. I’m always looking for a voice that brings me up short in any writer, young or old.”

Houman Barekat said: “As a critic I enjoy the judging process a lot. There’s something incredibly useful about having to justify your assessment to the rest of the judging panel — it keeps you honest, keeps you on your toes intellectually. One thing that stands out for me about the Young Writer of the Year Award is the breadth of the eligibility criteria: it usually makes for an eclectic shortlist, which is very welcome.”

With Raymond Antrobus, Adam Weymouth, Sally Rooney, Max Porter and Sarah Howe, the award has spotted and supported an exceptional line-up of defining new voices since returning from a 7-year break in 2015, and its alumni list includes acclaimed writers from Robert Macfarlane to Zadie Smith, from Sarah Waters to Simon Armitage.

Working with a constantly expanding network of partners, including the British Council, the award provides media and retail exposure, opportunities abroad, and vital industry connections to its shortlisted authors and winner. In addition to £5,000 in prize money, the winner package now includes a bespoke 10-week residency at the University of Warwick as well as a year’s membership of The London Library, which will also be offered to all shortlisted writers.

The award is administered by the Society of Authors. The University of Warwick, home to the acclaimed Warwick Writing Programme, is the title sponsor for the second year, following two years as associate sponsor. To be eligible for the prize — for the best work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry by a British or Irish author aged between 18 and 35 — books must have been published or self-published between June 15th 2019 and June 22nd 2020.

For further information, to keep up to date and join the conversation visit: www.youngwriteraward.com | twitter.com/youngwriteryear

Houman Barekat is a London-based book critic and founding editor of the online literary journal, Review 31. He reviews literary fiction and nonfiction for various publications including the Sunday Times, the Guardian, the Irish Times, the Spectator and Literary Review. He is co-editor (with Robert Barry and David Winters) of The Digital Critic: Literary Culture Online (OR Books, 2018).

Kit de Waal is a former Costa Short Story Award finalist and the author of My Name is Leon and The Trick to Time. Her first YA novel Becoming Dinah was published in 2019. She is also the editor of Common People, an anthology of Working Class Memoir. She co-founded The Primadonna Festival and The Big Book Weekend.

Sebastian Faulks’s books include A Possible Life, Human Traces, On Green Dolphin Street, Engleby, Birdsong, A Week in December and Where My Heart Used to Beat. Born in 1953, he worked as a journalist before becoming a full-time writer in 1991.

Tessa Hadley has written seven novels — including The London Train and The Past — and three collections of short stories. Her new novel, Late in the Day, came out in February 2019. She publishes short stories regularly in the New Yorker, reviews for the Guardian and the London Review of Books, and was awarded a Windham Campbell Prize for Fiction, the Hawthornden Prize, and the Edge Hill Prize.