As you probably know, once a decade Granta unveils a selection of what they consider to be the 20 best British novelists under the age of forty. Today the new list came out, and the next issue will contain a selection from each of the following authors.
- Naomi Alderman
- Tahmima Anam
- Ned Beauman
- Jenni Fagan
- Adam Foulds
- Xiaolu Guo
- Sarah Hall
- Steven Hall
- Joanna Kavenna
- Benjamin Markovits
- Nadifa Mohamed
- Helen Oyeyemi
- Ross Raisin
- Sunjeev Sahota
- Taiye Selasi
- Kamila Shamsie
- Zadie Smith
- David Szalay
- Adam Thirlwell
- Evie Wyld
The only novel I’ve reviewed from any of the above authors is Kamila Shamsie’s Burnt Shadows (review here). It will be interesting to track these careers to see which of these young authors meet these high expectations.
Hmm, interesting. I’ve read/reviewed some of them: Evie Wyld’s After the Fire A Still Small Voice (this was recommended by Kim from Reading Matters, and she was right, it’s a beaut book); NW by Zadie Smith (which was ok, but not IMO all that exciting); and neither was Daughters oi the North by Sarah Hall. Tahmima Anam’s The Good Muslim which was long?short?listed for the Man Asian was a very powerful book, I thought. Kamila Shamsie is on my TBR as well. But I’ve never heard of the rest.
Not sure I’d call a thirty-nine year old young exactly.
This one slightly puzzles me. What’s the point of this list? Take Zadie Smith, she’s hardly an unknown, so it’s not attracting our attention to writers we might not otherwise have heard of (or it’s not just doing that at any event). It’s not an award. It’s just a list of authors some of whom will be young but some of whom could easily have a decade or more’s successful writing behind them.
What’s it for?
It is a bit of strange exercise, if you step back a bit, I agree, Max. It certainly has done wonders for Granta, though!
Well then Trevor, I guess that tells us what it’s for!
Quite surprised to see Taiye Selasi on the list considering the fact that I thought she was American and also has published just one short story. I guess it’s the buzz surrounding her new book Ghana must go.
Pretty uninspiring list, that. Depressing, even. How the UK has fallen behind. One or two writers on there, I’m not rude enough to name them, are poor. Compare that to the similar US list a couple of years ago…I hope these writers can live up to whatever expectations there are of them, but there are maybe five on there that you will even hear about in ten years.