The £10,000 Guardian First Book Award recognizes the debut publication of a writer each year. The 2010 longlist includes five fiction titles, four non-fiction titles, and one poetry collection.
The Guardian will announce the shortlist in late October, and the winner will be revealed in December. The fiction titles are: Black Mamba Boy by Nadifa Mohamed, Mr Chartwell by Rebecca Hunt, Boxer, Beetle by Ned Beauman, Things We Didn’t See Coming by Steven Amsterdam, and Your Presence is Requested at Suvanto by Maile Chapman.
The nonfiction titles on the list are Bomber County by Daniel Swift, Being Wrong by Kathryn Schulz, Romantic Moderns by Alexandra Harris, and Curfewed Night by Basharat Peer. The poetry compilation is The Floating Man by Katharine Towers.
The Guardian wrote: “Last year’s winner was the Zimbabwean writer Petina Gappah, for her collection of short stories, An Elegy for Easterly. She joined a roster of winners from the 12-year history of the award that includes Zadie Smith, Alex Ross and Jonathan Safran Foer.”