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2021
Winner
Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson

Shortlist
The Manningtree Witches by AK Blakemore
Fault Lines by Emily Itami
The Stranding by Kate Sawyer
2020
Winner
Love After Love by Ingrid Persaud

Shortlist
Big Girl, Small Town by Michelle Gallen
The Family Tree by Sairish Hussain
All the Water in the World by Karen Raney
2019
Winner
The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins

Shortlist
Diary of a Somebody by Brian Bilston
Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams
The Other Half of Augusta Hope by Joanna Glen
Costa First Novel Award
2018
Winner
The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

Shortlist
Pieces of Me by Natalie Hart
An Unremarkable Body by Elisa Lodato
Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson

2017
Winner
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

Shortlist
The Clocks in the House All Tell Different Times by Xan Brooks
Montpelier Parade by Karl Geary
The Haunting of Henry Twist by Rebecca F John

2016
Winner
Golden Hill by Francis Spufford

Shortlist
The Good Guy by Susan Beale
My Name is Leon by Kit de Waal
The Words in My Hand by Guinevere Glasfurd
 
2015
Winner
The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley

Shortlist
Spill Simmer Falter Wither by Sara Baume
The Girl in the Red Coat by Kate Hamer
Things We Have In Common by Tasha Kavanagh
 
2014
Winner
Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey

Shortlist
A Song for Issy Bradley by Carys Bray
Academy Street by Mary Costello
Chop Chop by Simon Wroe
 
2013
Winner
The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer
 
Shortlist
Idiopathy by Sam Byers
Meeting the English by Kate Clanchy
Marriage Material by Sathnam Sanghera
 
2012
Winner
The Innocents by Francesca Segal

Shortlist
The Notable Brain of Maximilian Ponder by JW Ironmonger
Snake Ropes by Jess Richards
The Bellwether Revivals by Benjamin Wood
 
2011
Winner
Tiny Sunbirds Far Away by Christie Watson

Shortlist
City of Bohane by Kevin Barry
The Last Hundred Days by Patrick McGuinness
Pao by Kerry Young
 
2010
Winner
Witness the Night by Kishwar Desai

Shortlist
Coconut Unlimited by Nikesh Shukla
The Temple Goers by Aatish Taseer
Not Quite White by Simon Thirsk
 
2009
Winner
Beauty by Raphael Selbourne

Shortlist
The Finest Type of English Womanhood by Rachel Heath
John the Revelator by Peter Murphy
The Girl with Glass Feet by Ali Shaw
 
2008
Winner
The Outcast by Sadie Jones
 
Shortlist
The Behaviour of Moths by Poppy Adams
Inside the Whale by Jennie Rooney
Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
 
2007
Winner
What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn

Shortlist
A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam
Gifted by Nikita Lalwani
Mosquito by Roma Tearne
 
2006
Winner
The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney
 
Shortlist
The Meaning of Night by Michael Cox
Cloth Girl by Marilyn Heward Mills
The Amnesia Clinic by James Scudamore
 
Whitbread First Novel Award
2005
Winner
The Harmony Silk Factory by Tash Aw
 
Shortlist
26a by Diana Evans
The Short Day Dying by Peter Hobbs
Gem Squash Tokoloshe by Rachel Zadok
 
2004
Winner
Eve Green by Susan Fletcher
 
Shortlist
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
The Land as Viewed from the Sea by Richard Collins
The Maze by Panos Karnezis
 
2003
Winner
Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre
 
Shortlist
Buddha Da by Anne Donovan
An Evening of Long Goodbyes by Paul Murray
An Empty Room by Talitha Stevenson
 
2002
Winner
The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht
 
Shortlist
The End of My Tether by Neil Astley
Homage to a Firing Squad by Tariq Goddard
The Impressionist by Hari Kunzru
 
2001
Winner
Something Like a House by Sid Smith
 
Shortlist
The Oversight by Will Eaves
Burning Worm by Carl Tighe
August by Gerard Woodward
 
2000
Winner
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
 
Shortlist
Under the Skin by Michel Faber
Danny Boy by Jo-Ann Goodwin
Born Free by Laura Hird
 
1999
Winner
White City Blue by Tim Lott
 
Shortlist
The Great Ideas by Suzanne Cleminshaw
Our Fathers by Andrew O'Hagan
A Foreign Country by Francine Stock
 
1998
Winner
The Last King of Scotland by Giles Foden
 
Shortlist
Shopping by Gavin Kramer
The Restraint of Beasts by Magnus Mills
Jelly Roll by Luke Sutherland
 
1997
Winner
The Ventriloquist’s Tale by Pauline Melville
 
Shortlist
One Day as a Tiger by Anne Haverty
The Underground Man by Mick Jackson
Beach Boy by Ardashir Vakil
Eclipse of the Sun by Phil Whitaker
 
1996
Winner
The Debt to Pleasure by John Lanchester
 
Shortlist
Reading In the Dark by Seamus Deane
The Arizona Game by Georgina Hammick
Mother of Pearl by Mary Morrissy
 
1995
Winner
Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson
 
Shortlist
Gagarin & I by Stephen Blanchard
Morvern Callar by Alan Warner
 
1994
Winner
The Longest Memory by Fred D'Aguiar
 
1993
Winner
Saving Agnes by Rachel Cusk
 
1992
Winner
Swing Hammer Swing! by Jeff Torrington
 
1991
Winners
Alma Cogan by Gordon Burn
 
1990
Winner
The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi
 
1989
Winner
Gerontius by James Hamilton-Paterson
 
1988
Winner
The Comforts of Madness by Paul Sayer
 
1987
Winner
The Other Garden by Francis Wyndham
 
1986
Winner
Continent by Jim Crace
 
1985
Winner
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
 
1984
Winner
A Parish of Rich Women by James Buchan
 
1983
Winner
Flying to Nowhere by John Fuller
 
1982
Winner
On the Black Hill by Bruce Chatwin
 
1981
Winner
A Good Man in Africa by William Boyd
 
Whitbread First Book Award
1975
Winner
The Improbable Puritan: A Life of Bulstrode Whitelock by Ruth Spalding
 
1974
Winner
The Life & Death of Mary Wollstonecraft by Claire Tomalin
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