Best of British Novelists 2003
In April the literary magazine Granta will formally
publish a third list of twenty promising young British novelists. In
1983, the first list included Martin Amis, Pat Barker, Julian Barnes,
William Boyd, Salman Rushdie and Graham Swift. A formidable group by
any standards. The experiment was repeated in 1993 when the literary
heavyweights included Iain Banks, Louis de Bernieres, Hanif Kureishi,
Ben Okri, Will Self, Helen Simpson, Jeanette Winterson A L Kennedy and
Ishiguro again.
Now, in 2003, Granta have done it again. To qualify authors have to be
under 40 and hold a British passport. It also helps if they’ve
actually published a novel! But this list features two authors, Monica
Ali and Adam Thirlwell whose first novels will not appear until later
this year. The overlapping author this time is A L Kennedy and there
are some other names you’d expect to see on any list of promising
newcomers. They include Zadie Smith, Alan Warner, Sarah Waters, Nicola
Barker, Toby Litt and David Mitchell. Whilst all such lists provoke
strong arguments, it’s good to see authors such as David Peace, Ben
Rice, Rachel Cusk, Rachel Seiffert and Andrew O’Hagan being chosen.
The other authors are Robert McLiam Wilson, Peter Ho Davies, Susan
Elderkin, Philip Hensher, Hari Kunzru and Dan Rhodes.
Firsts in Print is pleased to offer samples of the work of these
novelists and more will appear on these pages as they are published.
Who knows, maybe in twenty years time there will be one of their
novels as valuable as ‘A Pale View of Hills’. If you had started
collecting the work of the Best of British 1983 and 1993 you would
have acquired and exciting and very valuable set of modern fiction.
Devotees of modern fiction will not want to miss the opportunity of
adding to this kind of collection or to start one from this new list.
2003 Best of British full list
Monica Ali, Nicola Barker, Rachel Cusk, Susan Elderkin, Philip Hensher,
Peter Ho Davies, A L Kennedy, Hari Kunzru, Toby Litt, Robert McLiam
Wilson, David Mitchell, Andrew O’Hagan, David Peace, Dan Rhodes, Ben
Rice, Rachel Seiffert, Zadie Smith, Adam Thirlwell, Alan Warner, Sarah
Waters
