Guardian First Book Award

The Guardian first book award was established in 1999 to reward the finest new literary talent with a £10,000 prize for an author's first book.  Winners of the award are listed first, followed by the "shortlist."

2015
Physical by Andrew McMillan
Man v. nature : stories by Diane Cook
The fishermen : a novel by Chigozie Obioma
Nothing is true and everything is possible : the surreal heart of the new Russia by Peter Pomerantsev
Grief is the thing with feathers by Max Porter
The shore : a novel by Sara Taylor

2014
Young skins by Colin Barrett
Do no harm by Harry Marsh
The night guest by Fiona McFarlane
Age of ambition : chasing fortune, truth, and faith in the new China by Evan Osnos
Things to make and break by May-Lan Tan

2013
The spinning heart by Donal Ryan
We need new names : a novel by NoViolet Bulawayo
Sex and the Citadel : intimate life in a changing Arab world by Shereen El Feki
Burial rites : a novel by Hannah Kent
Kiss me first : a novel by Lottie Moggach

2012
The yellow birds : a novel by Kevin Powers
Tony Hogan bought me an ice-cream float before he stole my ma by Kerry Hudson
The art of fielding by Chad Harbach

2011
The emperor of all maladies : a biography of cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman
Down the rabbit hole by Juan Pablo Villalobos
The collaborator by Mirza Waheed
The submission by Amy Waldman

2010
Romantic moderns : English writers, artists and the imagination from Virginia Woolf to John Piper by Alexandra Harris
Being wrong : adventures in the margins of error by Kathryn Schulz
Black mamba boy by Nadifa Mohamed
Boxer, Beetle by Ned Beauman
Your presence is requested at Suvanto by Maile Chapman

2009
An elegy for Easterly : stories by Petina Gappah
A swap full of dollars by Michael Peel
The rehearsal by Eleanor Catton
The wilderness : a novel by Samantha Harvey
The selected works of T. S. Spivet by Reif Larsen

2008
The rest is noise : listening to the twentieth century by Alex Ross
Stalin's children : three generations of love, war, and survival by Owen Matthews
A fraction of the whole by Steve Toltz
God's own country by Ross Raisin

2007
Children of the Revolution by Dinaw Mengestu
A golden age by Tahmima Anam
Imperial life in the Emerald City : inside Iraq’s green zone by Rajiv Chandrasekaran
God's architect by Rosemary Hill
What was lost by Catherine O'Flynn

2006
A thousand years of good prayers : stories by Yiyun Li
Harbor by Lorraine Adams
Poppy Shakespeare by Clare Allan
Running for the hills : growing up on my mother’s sheep farm in Wales by Horatio Clare
In the country of men by Hisham Matar
Waiting for the Night-Rowers by Roger Moulson
Lonesome George: the life and loves of a conservation icon by Henry Nicholls
A sense of the world : how a blind man became the world's greatest traveler by Jason Roberts
Donne : the reformed soul by John Stubbs
Everyman's rules for scientific living : a novel by Carrie Tiffany

2005
Stuart : a life backwards by Alexander Masters
No god but God : the origins, evolution, and future of Islam by Reza Aslan
The farm by Richard Benson
Bombay : maximum city by Suketu Mehta
Sightseeing : stories by Rattawut Lapcharoensap
The Harmony Silk Factory by Tash Aw
26a by Diana Evans
The ice museum : in search of the lost land of Thule by Joanna Kavenna
To a fault by Nick Laird
Misfortune : a novel by Wesley Stace

2004
Mutants : on genetic variety and the human body by Armand Marie Leroi
Natasha and other stories by David Bezmozgis
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Ground water by Matthew Hollis
The places in between by Rory Stewart
A chance meeting : intertwined lives of American writers and artists, 1854-1967 by Rachel Cohen
Becoming strangers by Louise Dean
High Tide : the truth about our climate crisis by Mark Lynas
The flood by David Maine

2003
Mountains of the mind by Robert Macfarlane
Brick Lane : a novel by Monica Ali
Vernon God Little by D. B. C. Pierre
Into the silent land : travels in neuropsychology by Paul Broks
Stasiland by Anna Funder
The book of salt by Monique Truong
A few short notes on tropical butterflies : stories by John Murray
Q by Luther Blissett
Duende : a journey into the heart of flamenco by Jason Webster
The last party by John Harris

2002
Everything is illuminated : a novel by Jonathan Safran Foer
Don't let's go to the dogs tonight : an African childhood by Alexandra Fuller
The impressionist by Hari Kunzru
Mapping Mars : science, imagination, and the birth of a world by Oliver Morton
The only good thing anyone has ever done by Sandra Newman
The snow geese : a story of home by William Fiennes
Virgins of Venice : broken vows and cloistered lives in the Renaissance convent by Mary Laven
Stories I stole from Georgia by Wendell Steavenson
Accidents in the home : a novel by Tessa Hadley
The cutting room by Louise Welsh

2001
Jimmy Corrigan : the smartest kid on earth by Chris Ware
Anthony Blunt : his lives by Miranda Carter
Wittgenstein's poker : the story of a ten-minute argument between two great philosophers by David Edmonds and John Eidinow
Carter beats the Devil : a novel by Glen David Gold
The dark room by Rachel Seiffert
The testament of Yves Gundron by Emily Barton
Bee season : a novel by Myla Goldberg
A circle of sisters : Alice Kipling, Georgiana Burne-Jones, Agnes Poynter and Louisa Baldwin by Judith Flanders
Thumb's width by John Redmond

2000
White teeth : a novel by Zadie Smith
House of leaves by Mark Z Danielewski
A heartbreaking work of staggering genius by Dave Eggers
No space, no choice, no jobs, no logo : taking aim at the brand bullies by Naomi Klein
Catfish and Mandala : a two-wheeled voyage through the landscape and memory of Vietnam by Andrew X. Pham
The rising sun : being a true account of the voyage of the great ship ... the author's adventures ... by Douglas Galbraith
Ubiquity : the science of history-- or why the world is simpler than we think by Mark Buchanan
In beautiful disguises by Rajeev Balasubramanyam
The hiding place by Trezza Azzopardi
The piano shop on the Left Bank : discovering a forgotten passion in a Paris Atelier by Thad Carhart

1999
The lighthouse Stevensons : the extraordinary story of the building of the Scottish lighthouses by the ancestors of Robert Louis Stevenson by Bella Bathurst
The girls' guide to hunting and fishing by Melissa Bank
Boxy an Star by Daren King
Ghostwritten : a novel by David Mitchell
We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families : stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch
By the shore : a novel by Galaxy Craze
Saddled with Darwin by Toby Green
The blue bedspread : a novel by Raj Kamal Jha
The cultural cold war : the CIA and the world of arts and letters by Frances Stonor Saunders
The nudist colony by Sarah May
No place like home : a black Briton's journey through the American South by Gary Younge