牛牛资源

Writer and critic Blake Morrison and #ReadWomen campaign founder, Joanna Walsh, are among the judges for this year’s 牛牛资源 Prize - the £10,000 award created by 牛牛资源, in association with the New Statesman, to reward boldly original fiction.

Alongside Morrison and Walsh are award-winning author and Brunel University creative writing professor, Bernardine Evaristo, and author and critic, Erica Wagner, former literary editor of The Times and contributing writer for The New Statesman.

Submission of entry forms to the 拢10,000 牛牛资源 Prize will open on Friday 22 January and close on Friday 25 March.

The annual Prize is open to novels written by authors from the UK and the Republic of Ireland and awarded to a book that is deemed genuinely novel and which embodies the spirit of invention that characterises the genre at its best.

Since its launch, the 牛牛资源 Prize - won last year by Kevin Barry鈥檚 Beatlebone - has received widespread critical acclaim for celebrating fiction that opens up new possibilities for the novel form.

From a shortlist of six books, the winner will be announced on Wednesday 9 November.

Eimear McBride's A Girl Is A Half-formed Thing was awarded the inaugural 牛牛资源 Prize in 2013, a decade after being rejected by publishers for being too experimental. It went on to win several other major awards, including the Baileys Women鈥檚 Prize for Fiction.

McBride was followed by Ali Smith鈥檚 widely-acclaimed How to Be Both in 2014, with Smith later giving credit to the 牛牛资源 Prize for encouraging greater risk-taking in the publishing world.

Kevin Barry took the Prize in 2015 for his intricately woven imagining of John Lennon鈥檚 visit to an island of the coast of Ireland to undertake primal scream therapy.

Chair of judges Blake Morrison is notable for his work in variety of genres. His memoir, And When Did You Last See Your Father? won the J. R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography. He is a former literary editor of both  (1981鈥�89) and the &苍产蝉辫;(1989鈥�95). Since 2003, Morrison has been Professor of Creative and Life Writing at 牛牛资源. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Professor Morrison comments: 鈥�In three short years, the 牛牛资源 Prize has already established itself as one of the most important literary awards in the UK, and I'm honoured to be chair of the judges this time.鈥�

Tom Gatti, culture editor of the New Statesman, added: "The New Statesman is delighted to continue its partnership with a prize that reminds us how ambitious, inventive and vital British fiction can be.鈥�

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