Granta's Best of Young British Novelists 2023

Introducing Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists 2023. 

Every ten years since 1983, Granta magazine has appointed a panel of judges to select the twenty British novelists under the age of forty that promise to be the most significant of their generation. An anthology of their writing is published to accompany the list of novelists. Each list shines a spotlight on the literary stars of the future, announcing a set of extraordinary new talents, with new ways of seeing the world, and revealing new directions in British culture.

Since it began in 1983, Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists selection has been seen as the barometer of Britain’s changing literary landscape. Previous selected writers have included highly esteemed names such as Ian McEwan, Zadie Smith, Kazuo Ishiguro, Sarah Waters, David Mitchell, Pat Barker, Will Self and Salman Rushdie, among many others. 

We are delighted to be supporting Granta's Best of Young British Novelists 2023 to introduce the work of these inspiring writers to literature audiences around the world. In the Granta's Best of Young British Novelists content series you will be able to discover more about the writers, hear from some of them and read or listen to extracts of their work. 

‘These young writers are the future of literature. Watch. History will prove me right.’– Bill Buford, editor of Granta, 1979–1995

What does this new generation of writers tell us about British fiction now?

To qualify for this instalment of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists selection, writers had to have been born in or after 1983, making all of them millennials. The list shows signs of a new literary culture that better represents the diversity of British society. 

Themes explored include: capitalism, migration, gang violence, xenophobia, surveillance, deceit, the pandemic, climate change and Ghanian folklore. The wide variety of settings include a football match in Wales, urban housing estates, and an unnamed island in a remote archipelago.

Writing in a time of anxiety, this diverse generation is strikingly unified in one way: all are interested in experimental visions of the future. This list showcases a forward-looking drive – the search for new possibilities, new alternatives, new hope.

Visit the Granta's Best of Young British Novelists website to meet the novelists and dive into their writing.