China Miéville has won this year’s Goldsmiths Prize for his novelThe Rouse.
The Goldsmiths Prize, launched in 2013 “to reward fiction that breaks the mold or extends the possibilities of the novel form,” has been previously awarded to Ali Smith, Kevin Barry, Eimear McBride, and Rachel Cusk, among others. It comes with a £10,000 purse and was judged this year by Kate Briggs, Hari Kunzru, David Sexton, and Francis Spufford (jury chair).
“Excellent though all the books on the shortlist are, it seemed only right to give this year’s Goldsmiths Prize to the one that, in terms of ambition, bold use of history, linguistic experiment and sheer scale, broke most explosively with expectation,” said Spufford in a statement.
The other shortlisted books this year were Polly Barton (What Am I, A Deer?), Doireann Ní Ghríofa (Said the Dead), Keith Ridgway (Dooneen), Aea Varfis-van Warmelo (Attention Seeking Behavior) and Missouri Williams (The Vivisectors). The prize continues to be one of the most adventurous and rambunctious prizes in modern literature—and for those who haven’t dug intoThe Rouse yet, let this be another encouragement. (Having dug in myself, I can only add that it is a truly mold-breaking book, unlike anything else you’ve ever or maybe ever will read.)