Best of British Novelists 2013

In April 2013 the literary magazine Granta published its fourth 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.

In 2003, the authors included A L Kennedy (again), Monica Ali, Adam Thirlwell, Zadie Smith, Alan Warner, Sarah Waters, Nicola Barker, Toby Litt, David Mitchell, David Peace, Ben Rice, Rachel Cusk, Rachel Seiffert, Andrew O’Hagan, Robert McLiam Wilson, Peter Ho Davies, Susan Elderkin, Philip Hensher, Hari Kunzru and Dan Rhodes.

Now again in 2013 the list has been released, with Adam Thirlwell and Zadie Smith this time straddling the decades. While always controversial, it includes some excellent novelists and Firsts in Print is pleased to offer samples of the work of these novelists as they are published. Who knows, maybe in twenty years time one of their novels will be as valuable as ‘A Pale View of Hills’. If you had started collecting the work of the Best of British 1983, 1993 and 2003 you would have acquired an 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.

2013 Best of British full list

Adam Foulds, Evie Wyld, Adam Thirlwell, Zadie Smith, Naomi Alderman, Sarah Hall, Steven Hall, Ross Raisin, David Szalay, Sunjeev Sahota, Xiaolu Guo, Kamila Shamsie, Ned Beauman, Tahmima Anam, Nadifa Mohamed, Taiye Selasi, Joanna Kavenna, Benjamin Markovits, Jenni Fagan, Helen Oyeyemi