Spufford wins 2017 Desmond Elliott Prize

Francis Spufford has won the 2017 Desmond Elliott Prize for first-time novelists for Golden Hill (Faber).

The winning novel, which is set in 18th-century New York, has already won the Costa First Novel Award and the Ondaatje Prize. It was chosen from a shortlist of three that included My Name is Leon (Kit de Waal, Penguin) and Harmless Like You (Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, Sceptre).

Judge Sam Leith described Golden Hill as ‘miraculously constructed … at once so fabulously entertaining, so exquisitely wrought and so moving that it stands among not just the best first novels of the year, but the best novels of this or any year’.

Spufford receives a cash prize of £10,000 (A$16,814). For more information about the award, click here.

Category: International news