The Somerset Maugham Award is a British literary prize given each May by the Society of Authors

Society of Authors

The Society of Authors is a trade union for professional writers that was founded in 1884 to protect the rights of writers and fight to retain those rights .It has counted amongst its members and presidents numerous notable writers and poets including Tennyson The Society of Authors (UK) is a...

. It is awarded to whom they judge to be the best writer or writers under the age of thirty-five of a book published in the past year. The prize was instituted in 1947 by William Somerset Maugham and thus bears his name: the award is to be spent on foreign travel. The total fund for each year is £12,000 http://www.societyofauthors.net/soa/page_id_sub.php4?pid=8&par_nm=Prizes,+grants+and+awards&parentid=7.

Since 1964, multiple winners have usually been chosen in the same year. In 1975, the award was not given. The Award has twice been won by the son of a previous winner: Kingsley Amis

Kingsley Amis

Sir Kingsley William Amis, CBE was an English novelist, poet, critic, and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, various short stories, radio and television scripts, along with works of social and literary criticism...

 (winner in 1955) was the father of Martin Amis

Martin Amis

Martin Louis Amis is a British novelist, the author of many novels including Money and London Fields . He is currently Professor of Creative Writing at the Centre for New Writing at the University of Manchester, but will step down at the end of the 2010/11 academic year...

 (1974), and Nigel Kneale

Nigel Kneale

Nigel Kneale was a British screenwriter from the Isle of Man. Active in television, film, radio drama and prose fiction, he wrote professionally for over fifty years, was a winner of the Somerset Maugham Award and was twice nominated for the British Film Award for Best Screenplay...

 (1950) the father of Matthew Kneale

Matthew Kneale

Matthew Kneale is a British writer, best known for his 2000 novel English Passengers, which won the prestigious Whitbread Book Award and was also shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He went to school at Latymer Upper School and then studied Modern History at Magdalen College, Oxford, and afterwards...

 (1988).

Full list of winners

Year	Author	Book
1947	A. L. Barker A. L. Barker Audrey Lilian Barker FRSL was an English novelist and short story writer. She was born in St Pauls Cray, Kent and brought up in Beckenham. During her lifetime, she published ten collections of short stories and eleven novels, one of which - John Brown's Body - was shortlisted for the Booker Prize...	Innocents
1948	P. H. Newby P. H. Newby Percy Howard Newby CBE was an English novelist and broadcasting administrator. He was the first winner of the Booker Prize, his novel Something to Answer For having received the inaugural award in 1969.-Early life:P.H...	Journey to the Interior
1949	Hamish Henderson Hamish Henderson Hamish Scott Henderson, was a Scottish poet, songwriter, soldier, and intellectual....	Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica
1950	Nigel Kneale Nigel Kneale Nigel Kneale was a British screenwriter from the Isle of Man. Active in television, film, radio drama and prose fiction, he wrote professionally for over fifty years, was a winner of the Somerset Maugham Award and was twice nominated for the British Film Award for Best Screenplay...	Tomato Cain & Other Stories
1951	Roland Camberton Roland Camberton Roland Camberton was a British writer whose real name was Henry Cohen, though his family also knew him as Harry. He won the 1951 Somerset Maugham Award, given to authors under the age of 35, for his novel Scamp...	Scamp
1952	Francis King Francis King Francis Henry King, CBE was a British novelist, poet and short story writer.He was born in Adelboden, Switzerland, brought up in India and educated at Shrewsbury School and Balliol College, Oxford. During World War II he was a conscientious objector, and left Oxford to work on the land...	The Dividing Stream
1953	Emyr Humphreys Emyr Humphreys Emyr Humphreys is a leading Welsh novelist, poet and author. He was born at Prestatyn in Flintshire, and attended University of Wales, Aberystwyth. He registered as a conscientious objector at the outbreak of the Second World War...	Hear and Forgive
1954	Doris Lessing Doris Lessing Doris May Lessing CH is a British writer. Her novels include The Grass is Singing, The Golden Notebook, and five novels collectively known as Canopus in Argos....	Five Short Novels
1955	Kingsley Amis Kingsley Amis Sir Kingsley William Amis, CBE was an English novelist, poet, critic, and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, various short stories, radio and television scripts, along with works of social and literary criticism...	Lucky Jim Lucky Jim Lucky Jim is an academic satire written by Kingsley Amis, first published in 1954 by Victor Gollancz. It was Amis's first novel, and won the Somerset Maugham Award for fiction...
1956	Elizabeth Jennings Elizabeth Jennings Elizabeth Jennings was an English poet.-Life and career:Jennings was born in Boston, Lincolnshire. When she was six, her family moved to Oxford, where she remained for the rest of her life. Couzyn, Jeni Contemporary Women Poets. Bloodaxe, pp. 98-100. There she later attended St Anne's College...	A Way of Looking
1957	George Lamming George Lamming George Lamming , is a novelist and poet. He was born in Barbados and teaches at Brown University.- Early life and education :George Lamming was born on June 8, 1927 in Carrington Village, Barbados, of mixed African and English parentage. After his mother married his stepfather, Lamming split his...	In the Castle of My Skin
1958	John Wain John Wain John Barrington Wain was an English poet, novelist, and critic, associated with the literary group "The Movement". For most of his life, Wain worked as a freelance journalist and author, writing and reviewing for newspapers and the radio. He seems to have married in 1947, since C. S...	Preliminary Essays
1959	Thom Gunn Thom Gunn Thom Gunn, born Thomson William Gunn , was an Anglo-American poet who was praised both for his early verses in England, where he was associated with The Movement and his later poetry in America, even after moving toward a looser, free-verse style...	A Sense Of Movement
1960	Ted Hughes Ted Hughes Edward James Hughes OM , more commonly known as Ted Hughes, was an English poet and children's writer. Critics routinely rank him as one of the best poets of his generation. Hughes was British Poet Laureate from 1984 until his death.Hughes was married to American poet Sylvia Plath, from 1956 until...	The Hawk in the Rain
1961	V. S. Naipaul V. S. Naipaul Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad "V. S." Naipaul, TC is a Nobel prize-winning Indo-Trinidadian-British writer who is known for his novels focusing on the legacy of the British Empire's colonialism...	Miguel Street Miguel Street Miguel Street is a semi-autobiographical novel by V. S. Naipaul set in wartime Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. Naipaul wrote it while employed at the BBC using a BBC typewriter and "rustle-free paper."...
1962	Hugh Thomas	The Spanish Civil War
1963	David Storey David Storey David Rhames Storey is an English playwright, screenwriter, award-winning novelist and a former professional rugby league player....	Flight Into Camden
1964	Dan Jacobson Dan Jacobson Dan Jacobson is a novelist, short story writer, critic and essayist. He has lived in Great Britain for most of his adult life, and for many years held a professorship in the English Department at University College London...	Time of Arrival
	John le Carré John le Carré David John Moore Cornwell , who writes under the name John le Carré, is an author of espionage novels. During the 1950s and the 1960s, Cornwell worked for MI5 and MI6, and began writing novels under the pseudonym "John le Carré"...	The Spy Who Came In From the Cold The Spy Who Came in from the Cold The Spy Who Came in from the Cold , by John le Carré, is a British Cold War spy novel that became famous for its portrayal of Western espionage methods as being morally inconsistent with Western democracy and values. The novel received critical acclaim at the time of its publication and became an...
1965	Peter Everett Peter Everett (author) Peter Everett was an English novelist and author. His first novel Negatives won the 1965 Somerset Maugham Award. Everett had written the book in a mere three weeks....	Negatives
1966	Michael Frayn Michael Frayn Michael J. Frayn is an English playwright and novelist. He is best known as the author of the farce Noises Off and the dramas Copenhagen and Democracy...	The Tin Men The Tin Men The Tin Men is a novel by Michael Frayn, published in 1965. It won the Somerset Maugham Award the following year.It concerns the lives of workers at William Morris Institute for Automation Research. This is itself a joke as William Morris was all in favour of hand-working...
	Julian Mitchell Julian Mitchell Julian Mitchell FRSL , full name Charles Julian Humphrey Mitchell, is an English playwright, screenwriter and occasional novelist...	The White Father
1967	B. S. Johnson B. S. Johnson B. S. Johnson was an English experimental novelist, poet, literary critic, producer of television programmes and film-maker.-Biography:...	Trawl
	Andrew Sinclair Andrew Sinclair Dr Andrew Sinclair is a prolific British novelist, historian, biographer, critic and film-maker. He was a Founding Member of Churchill College, Cambridge. He directed the film, now regarded as a classic, of Under Milk Wood. His book The Better Half: The Emancipation of the American Woman won the...	The Better Half
1968	Paul Bailey Paul Bailey Paul Bailey is a British writer and critic, author of several novels as well as biographies of Cynthia Payne and Quentin Crisp.-Biography:...	At The Jerusalem
	Seamus Heaney Seamus Heaney Seamus Heaney is an Irish poet, writer and lecturer. He lives in Dublin. Heaney has received the Nobel Prize in Literature , the Golden Wreath of Poetry , T. S. Eliot Prize and two Whitbread prizes...	Death of a Naturalist Death of a Naturalist Death of a Naturalist is a collection of poems written by Irish Nobel winner Seamus Heaney. The collection was Heaney's second major published volume, and includes ideas which he had presented at meetings of The Belfast Group...
1969	Angela Carter Angela Carter Angela Carter was an English novelist and journalist, known for her feminist, magical realism, and picaresque works...	Several Perceptions Several Perceptions Several Perceptions is a 1968 novel by the author Angela Carter....
1970	Jane Gaskell Jane Gaskell Jane Gaskell is a British fantasy writer. Gaskell was born in 1941. She wrote her first novel Strange Evil, when she was 14. It was published two years later...	A Sweet Sweet Summer
	Piers Paul Read Piers Paul Read Piers Paul Read, FRSL is a British novelist and non-fiction writer.-Background:Read was born in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire...	Monk Dawson Monk Dawson (novel) Monk Dawson, is a novel by English author Piers Paul Read, published in 1969 by Secker and Warburg in the UK and in 1970 by Lippincott in the US, the year it won both the Somerset Maugham Award and Hawthornden Prize. It was adapted into a film of the same name in 1998...
1971	Susan Hill Susan Hill Susan Hill is an English author of fiction and non-fiction works. Her novels include The Woman in Black, The Mist in the Mirror and I'm the King of the Castle for which she received the Somerset Maugham Award in 1971....	I'm the King of the Castle I'm the King of the Castle (novel) I’m the King of the Castle is a novel written by Susan Hill, originally published in 1970. The French film Je suis le seigneur du château is loosely based on the novel.-Plot summary:...
	Richard Barber Richard Barber Richard William Barber FRSL FSA FRHistS is a British historian who has been writing and publishing in the field of medieval history and literature ever since his student days. He has specialised in Arthurian legend, beginning with a general survey, Arthur of Albion which is still in print in a...	The Knight and Chivalry
	Michael Hastings Michael Hastings (playwright) Michael Gerald Hastings was a British playwright, screen-writer, and occasional novelist and poet.He is probably best known for his 1984 play about the poet T.S. Eliot and his wife Vivienne Haigh-Wood, Tom & Viv, which became a motion picture released in 1994.Hastings was born in London...	Tussy Is Me
1972	Douglas Dunn Douglas Dunn Douglas Eaglesham Dunn, OBE is a Scottish poet, academic, and critic. He currently lives in Scotland.-Background:Dunn was born in Inchinnan, Renfrewshire. He was educated at the Scottish School of Librarianship, and worked as a librarian before he started his studies in Hull...	Terry Street
	Gillian Tindall Gillian Tindall Gillian Tindall is a British writer. Among her better-known works are City of Gold: Biography of Bombay and Celestine: Voices from a French Village...	Fly Away Home
1973	Peter Prince Peter Prince Peter Prince is a British novelist. He was born in England and studied in America. His first novel Play Things won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1973. He won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing in a Limited Series or a Special for his work on the 1980 BBC miniseries Oppenheimer. His novel The...	Play Things
	Paul Strathern Paul Strathern Paul Strathern is a British writer and academic. He was born in London, and studied at Trinity College, Dublin, after which he served in the Merchant Navy over a period of two years. He then lived on a Greek island. In 1966 he travelled overland to India and the Himalayas...	A Season in Abyssinia
	Jonathan Street Jonathan Street Jonathan Street is an award-winning novelist. He won the Somerset Maugham award for his novel Prudence Dictates . Among his other books are Yours and Rebarbative! - External links :*...	Prudence Dictates
1974	Martin Amis Martin Amis Martin Louis Amis is a British novelist, the author of many novels including Money and London Fields . He is currently Professor of Creative Writing at the Centre for New Writing at the University of Manchester, but will step down at the end of the 2010/11 academic year...	The Rachel Papers The Rachel Papers The Rachel Papers is a 1989 British film based on the novel of the same name by Martin Amis. It stars Dexter Fletcher and Ione Skye as the two main characters, and a number of famous names in supporting roles such as Jonathan Pryce, Bill Paterson, James Spader, Jared Harris, Claire Skinner, and...
1975	No Award
1976	Dominic Cooper Dominic Cooper (author) Dominic Cooper is a British novelist, poet and watchmaker. He won the Somerset Maugham Award for his novel The Dead of Winter .- Background & career :...	The Dead of Winter
	Ian McEwan Ian McEwan Ian Russell McEwan CBE, FRSA, FRSL is a British novelist and screenwriter, and one of Britain's most highly regarded writers. In 2008, The Times named him among their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945"....	First Love, Last Rites First Love, Last Rites First Love, Last Rites is a collection of short stories by Ian McEwan. It was first published in 1975 by Jonathan Cape and re-issued in 1997 by Vintage.- Context :...
1977	Richard Holmes Richard Holmes (biographer) Richard Holmes, OBE, FRSL, FBA is a British author and academic best known for his biographical studies of major figures of British and French Romanticism.-Biography:...	Shelley: The Pursuit
1978	Tom Paulin Tom Paulin Thomas Neilson Paulin is a Northern Irish poet and critic of film, music and literature. He lives in England, where he is the GM Young Lecturer in English Literature at Hertford College, Oxford.- Life and work :...	A State of Justice
	Nigel Williams Nigel Williams (author) Nigel Williams is an English novelist, screenwriter and playwright.-Biography:He was educated at Highgate School and Oriel College, Oxford, is married with three sons and lives in Putney, south-west London...	My Life Closed Twice
1979	Helen Hodgman Helen Hodgman Helen Hodgman is an Australian novelist. She won the 1978 Somerset Maugham Award for her novel Jack and Jill. She also won the 1989 Christina Stead Fiction Prize for the novel Broken Words. Her remaining works include Waiting for Matindi, Passing Remarks, Ducks, Blue Skies and The Bad...	Jack & Jill
	Sara Maitland Sara Maitland Sara Maitland is a British writer and feminist. An accomplished novelist, she is also known for her short stories. Her work has a magic realist tendency.-Biography:...	Daughter of Jerusalem
1980	Max Hastings Max Hastings Sir Max Hugh Macdonald Hastings, FRSL is a British journalist, editor, historian and author. He is the son of Macdonald Hastings, the noted British journalist and war correspondent and Anne Scott-James, sometime editor of Harper's Bazaar.-Life and career:Hastings was educated at Charterhouse...	Bomber Command
	Christopher Reid Christopher Reid Christopher Reid is a Hong Kong-born British poet, essayist, cartoonist, and writer. He has been nominated twice for the Whitbread Awards in 1996 and in 1997. A contemporary of Martin Amis, he was educated at Exeter College, Oxford. He is one of the exponents of Martian poetry which employs...	Arcadia
	Humphrey Carpenter Humphrey Carpenter Humphrey William Bouverie Carpenter was an English biographer, writer, and radio broadcaster.-Biography:...	The Inklings
1981	Julian Barnes Julian Barnes Julian Patrick Barnes is a contemporary English writer, and winner of the 2011 Man Booker Prize, for his book The Sense of an Ending...	Metroland
	Clive Sinclair Clive Sinclair (author) Clive John Sinclair FRSL is a British author who has published several award winning novels and collections of short stories, including The Lady with the Laptop and Bedbugs....	Hearts of Gold
	A. N. Wilson A. N. Wilson Andrew Norman Wilson is an English writer and newspaper columnist, known for his critical biographies, novels, works of popular history and religious views...	The Healing Art
1982	William Boyd William Boyd (writer) William Boyd, CBE is a Scottish novelist and screenwriter.-Biography:Of Scottish descent, Boyd spent his early life in Ghana and Nigeria, in Africa...	A Good Man in Africa A Good Man in Africa A Good Man in Africa is a novel by William Boyd.-Film adaptation:In 1994 the novel was made into a film of the same name, with a script written by Boyd.- External links :*...
	Adam Mars-Jones Adam Mars-Jones Adam Mars-Jones is a British novelist and critic.Mars-Jones was born in London, to parents William Mars-Jones, the Welsh High Court judge and President of the London Welsh Trust, and Sheila . Mars-Jones studied at Westminster School, and read Classics at Trinity Hall, Cambridge...	Lantern Lecture
1983	Lisa St Aubin de Teran Lisa St Aubin de Terán Lisa St Aubin de Terán is an award-winning English novelist, writer of autobiographical fictions, and memoirist.Lisa St Aubin de Terán was born in 1953 and brought up in Clapham in South London. She attended the James Allen's Girls' School...	Keepers of the House Keepers of the House Keepers of the House is the debut novel of Lisa St Aubin de Terán, published as The Long Way Home in the US. The novel is autobiographical and set in a Venezuelan valley beset by drought...
1984	Peter Ackroyd Peter Ackroyd Peter Ackroyd CBE is an English biographer, novelist and critic with a particular interest in the history and culture of London. For his novels about English history and culture and his biographies of, among others, Charles Dickens, T. S. Eliot and Sir Thomas More he won the Somerset Maugham Award...	The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde is a 1983 novel by Peter Ackroyd. It won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1984.- Plot summary :The novel is written in the form of a diary which Oscar Wilde was writing in Paris in 1900, up to his death...
	Timothy Garton Ash Timothy Garton Ash Timothy Garton Ash is a British historian, author and commentator. He is currently serving as Professor of European Studies at Oxford University. Much of his work has been concerned with the late modern and contemporary history of Central and Eastern Europe...	The Polish Revolution: Solidarity
	Sean O'Brien Sean O'Brien (writer) Sean O'Brien is a British poet, critic, playwright. Prizes he has garnered include the Eric Gregory Award , the Somerset Maugham Award , the Cholmondeley Award , the Forward Poetry Prize and the T. S. Eliot Prize...	The Indoor Park
1985	Blake Morrison Blake Morrison Philip Blake Morrison is a British poet and author who has published in a wide range of fiction and non-fiction genres. His greatest success came with the publication of his memoirs And When Did You Last See Your Father? which won the J. R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography. He has also written a...	Dark Glasses
	Jeremy Reed Jeremy Reed Jeremy Thomas Reed is an American professional baseball outfielder who is a free agent.Reed graduated from Bonita High School in 1999, and went on to play college baseball at Long Beach State University...	By the Fisheries
	Jane Rogers Jane Rogers Jane Rogers is a British novelist, editor, scriptwriter, lecturer, and teacher. She is best known for her novels Mr. Wroe's Virgins and The Voyage Home...	Her Living Image
1986	Patricia Ferguson	Family Myths and Legends
	Adam Nicolson Adam Nicolson Adam Nicolson, Baron Carnock, FRSL, FSA , is a British author who writes about English history, landscape and the sea....	Frontiers
	Tim Parks Tim Parks Tim Parks is a British novelist, translator and author.-Life:Tim Parks was born in Manchester in 1954, the son of a clergyman. He grew up in Finchley , London and was educated at Cambridge University and Harvard. He has lived near Verona in Italy since 1981...	Tongues of Flame
1987	Stephen Gregory Stephen Gregory (author) Stephen Gregory is a Welsh author of horror fiction. He was born in Derby, England in 1952. He has a degree in law from the University of London, and has worked as a teacher in various places, including Bangor in Wales, Algiers in Algeria and the Sudan...	The Cormorant
	Janni Howker Janni Howker Janni Howker is a British author who has written several award-winning adult and children's books; she has also adapted her work for the screen...	Isaac Campion
	Andrew Motion Andrew Motion Sir Andrew Motion, FRSL is an English poet, novelist and biographer, who presided as Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1999 to 2009.- Life and career :...	The Lamberts
1988	Jimmy Burns	The Land That Lost Its Heroes
	Carol Ann Duffy Carol Ann Duffy Carol Ann Duffy, CBE, FRSL is a Scottish poet and playwright. She is Professor of Contemporary Poetry at the Manchester Metropolitan University, and was appointed Britain's poet laureate in May 2009...	Selling Manhattan
	Matthew Kneale Matthew Kneale Matthew Kneale is a British writer, best known for his 2000 novel English Passengers, which won the prestigious Whitbread Book Award and was also shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He went to school at Latymer Upper School and then studied Modern History at Magdalen College, Oxford, and afterwards...	Whore Banquets
1989	Rupert Christiansen Rupert Christiansen Rupert Christiansen is an English writer, journalist and critic, grandson of Arthur Christiansen and son of Kay and Michael Christiansen . Born in London, he was educated at Millfield and King's College, Cambridge, where he took a double first in English...	Romantic Affinities
	Alan Hollinghurst Alan Hollinghurst Alan Hollinghurst is a British novelist, and winner of the 2004 Man Booker Prize for The Line of Beauty.-Biography:Hollinghurst was born on 26 May 1954 in Stroud, Gloucestershire, the only child of James Hollinghurst, a bank manager, and his wife, Elizabeth...	The Swimming Pool Library The Swimming Pool Library The Swimming-Pool Library is a 1988 novel by Alan Hollinghurst.-Plot introduction:In 1983 London, the privileged, gay, and apparently sexually irresistible 25 year old protagonist Will saves the life of an elderly aristocrat having a heart-attack in a public lavatory...
	Deirdre Madden Deirdre Madden Deirdre Madden is an author from Toomebridge, County Antrim in Northern Ireland. She was educated at St Mary's Grammar School, Trinity College, Dublin and at the University of East Anglia . In 1994 she was Writer-in-Residence at University College, Cork and in 1997 was Writer Fellow at Trinity...	The Birds of the Innocent Wood
1990	Mark Hudson Mark Hudson (author) Mark Hudson is a multiple-award-winning British writer, journalist and critic, whose books have been described as exploring the boundaries between fiction and travel writing.-Biography:...	Our Grandmothers' Drums
	Sam North	The Automatic Man
	Nicholas Shakespeare Nicholas Shakespeare Nicholas William Richmond Shakespeare is a British journalist and writer. Born to a diplomat, Shakespeare grew up in the Far East and in South America. He was educated at the Dragon School preparatory school then Winchester College and Cambridge and worked as a journalist for BBC television and...	The Vision of Elena Silves
1991	Peter Benson Peter Benson (author) Peter Benson was born in 1956 in Kent, UK and is the award-winning author of eight novels. His work has been described as ‘a far-reaching exploration into unlikely relationships’ and is characterised by the precision of its language, characterisations and approach.-Bibliography:Novels* 1987, The...	The Other Occupant
	Lesley Glaister Lesley Glaister Lesley Glaister is a British novelist and playwright. She has written 12 novels, Chosen being the most recent, one play and numerous short stories and radio plays. She is a lecturer in creative writing at the University of St Andrews, and is a regular contributor of book reviews to the Spectator...	Honour Thy Father
	Helen Simpson Helen Simpson (author) Helen Simpson is an English novelist and short story writer. She was born in 1959 in Bristol, in the West of England, and went to a girls' school. She worked at Vogue for five years before her success in writing short stories meant she could afford to leave and concentrate full-time on her writing...	Four Bare Legs in a Bed
1992	Geoff Dyer Geoff Dyer Geoff Dyer is a British author and novelist. He is also a journalist who writes about a wide range of topics. His published work includes four novels and several books of non-fiction, which have won a number of literary awards...	But Beautiful
	Lawrence Norfolk Lawrence Norfolk Lawrence Norfolk is a British novelist known for historical works with complex plots and intricate detail. His novels also feature an unusually large vocabulary....	Lemprière's Dictionary
	Gerard Woodward Gerard Woodward Gerard Woodward is an award-winning British novelist, poet and short story writer, best known for his trilogy of novels concerning the troubled Jones family, the second of which, I'll Go To Bed at Noon, was shortlisted for the 2004 Man-Booker Prize.He was born in London and briefly studied...	Householder
1993	Dea Birkett Dea Birkett Dea Birkett is a British writer, journalist, broadcaster and a former circus performer. She has written on social issues for The Guardian and broadcasts for BBC Radio 4...	Jella
	Duncan McLean Duncan McLean (writer) Duncan McLean is a Scottish novelist, playwright, and short story writer.-Life and works:Duncan McLean was born in Fraserburgh and has lived in Orkney since 1992. While based in Edinburgh in the 1980s, he started writing songs, stand-up routines, and plays for the Merry Mac Fun Co, a street...	Bucket of Tongues Bucket of Tongues Bucket of Tongues is a collection of short stories by the Scottish writer Duncan McLean. Published in 1992, it was McLean's first book....
	Glyn Maxwell Glyn Maxwell Glyn Maxwell is a British poet.-Early life:Though his parents are Welsh, Maxwell was born and raised in Welwyn Garden City in Hertfordshire. He studied English at Worcester College, Oxford. He began an MLitt there, but in 1987 moved to America to study poetry and drama with Derek Walcott at...	Out of the Rain
1994	Jackie Kay Jackie Kay Jackie Kay MBE is a Scottish poet and novelist.-Biography:Jackie Kay was born in Glasgow in 1961 to a Scottish mother and a Nigerian father, Jonathan C. Okafor who later became a prominent tropical plant taxonomist...	Other Lovers
	A. L. Kennedy A. L. Kennedy Alison Louise Kennedy is a Scottish writer of novels, short stories and non-fiction. She is known for a characteristically dark tone, a blending of realism and fantasy, and for her serious approach to her work...	Looking For the Possible Dance
	Philip Marsden Philip Marsden Philip Marsden also known as Philip Marsden-Smedley is an English travel writer and novelist.Marsden has a degree in anthropology and worked for some years for The Spectator magazine. He became a full-time writer in the late 1980s...	Crossing Place
1995	Patrick French Patrick French Patrick French is a British writer and historian, based in London. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh where he studied English and American literature....	Younghusband
	Simon Garfield Simon Garfield Simon Frank Garfield is a British journalist and non-fiction author. He was educated at the independent University College School in Hampstead, London, and the London School of Economics, where he was the Executive Editor of The Beaver....	The End of Innocence
	Kathleen Jamie Kathleen Jamie Kathleen Jamie FRSL is a Scottish poet, raised in Currie, Edinburgh. She gained an M.A. in Philosophy from the University of Edinburgh....	The Queen of Sheba
	Laura Thompson Laura Thompson Laura Thompson is a Canadian musician and music columnist for CBC Newsworld's daily arts wrap, CBC News: The Scene.Thompson is also a producer on The Scene and a member of Toronto-based pop band The Good Soldiers.-External links:*...	The Dogs
1996	Katherine Pierpoint	Truffle Beds
	Alan Warner Alan Warner Alan Warner , a Scottish novelist, grew up in Connel, near Oban.He is the author of six novels: the acclaimed Morvern Callar , winner of a Somerset Maugham Award; These Demented Lands , winner of the Encore Award; The Sopranos , winner of the Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award; The Man...	Morvern Callar Morvern Callar Morvern Callar was the debut novel by Scottish author Alan Warner, first published in 1995. Narrated in the first person, it tells the story of Morvern, who wakes up near Christmas to find her boyfriend dead in the kitchen:...
1997	Rhidian Brook Rhidian Brook Rhidian Brook is a novelist, screenwriter and broadcaster.He has written two novels. His first - The Testimony of Taliesin Jones - won the 1997 Somerset Maugham Award, a Betty Trask Award and the Author's Club First Novel Award as well being runner up for Welsh Book of The Year...	The Testimony of Taliesin Jones
	Kate Clanchy Kate Clanchy -Life:She was educated in Edinburgh and Oxford University. She lived in London's East End for several years, before moving to Oxfordshire where she now works as a teacher, journalist and freelance writer....	Slattern
	Philip Hensher Philip Hensher Philip Michael Hensher FRSL is an English novelist, critic and journalist.Hensher was born in South London, although he spent the majority of his childhood and adolescence in Sheffield, attending Tapton School. He did his undergraduate degree at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford before attending...	Kitchen Venom
	Francis Spufford Francis Spufford -Early life:He studied English Literature at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, gaining a BA in 1985.-Career:He was Chief Publisher's Reader from 1987-90 for Chatto & Windus....	I May Be Some Time
1998	Rachel Cusk Rachel Cusk -Biography:Rachel Cusk was born in Canada in 1967 and spent much of her childhood in Los Angeles before finishing her education at St Mary's Convent in Cambridge. She read English at New College, Oxford, and has travelled extensively in Spain and Central America. She is the author of six novels....	The Country Life
	Jonathan Rendall Jonathan Rendall Jonathan Rendall is a Somerset Maugham Award winning writer. He previously acted as Managerial Advisor to the World Featherweight boxing champion, Colin "Sweet C" McMillan - and has written three multi-award winning books....	This Bloody Mary Is the Last Thing I Own
	Kate Summerscale Kate Summerscale Kate Summerscale is an award-winning English writer and journalist.She is the author of The Suspicions of Mr Whicher or The Murder at Road Hill House which won the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-fiction 2008, and the bestselling The Queen of Whale Cay, about Joe Carstairs, 'fastest woman on water',...	The Queen of Whale Cay
	Robert Twigger Robert Twigger Robert Twigger is a British poet, writer and explorer. He lives in Cairo, Egypt.-Life:Twigger was educated at Balliol College, Oxford University. He first began to study engineering, but after six weeks switched to politics, philosophy and economics. His attendance record was poor, and he left...	Angry White Pyjamas Angry White Pyjamas Angry White Pyjamas is a book written by Robert Twigger about his time in a one-year intensive program of studying Yoshinkan aikido.-Summary:...
1999	Andrea Ashworth Andrea Ashworth Andrea Ashworth is a British writer and academic, best known for her memoir Once in a House on Fire, which won the Somerset Maugham Award from the Society of Authors in 1999.-Life:...	Once in a House on Fire
	Paul Farley Paul Farley Paul Farley is an award-winning English poet. He studied painting at the Chelsea School of Art, and has lived in London, Brighton and Cumbria...	The Boy from the Chemist is Here to See You
	Giles Foden Giles Foden Giles Foden is an English author best known for his award-winning novel The Last King of Scotland .-Biography:Giles Foden was born in Warwickshire in 1967. His family moved to Malawi in 1971 where he was raised...	The Last King of Scotland The Last King of Scotland The Last King of Scotland is an award-winning 1998 novel by journalist Giles Foden. Focusing on the rise of Ugandan President Idi Amin and his reign as dictator from 1971 to 1979, the novel is written as the memoir of a fictional Scottish doctor in Amin's employ. Giles Foden's novel received...
	Jonathan Freedland Jonathan Freedland Jonathan Saul Freedland is a British journalist, who writes a weekly column for The Guardian and a monthly piece for the Jewish Chronicle. He is also a regular contributor to The New York Times and The New York Review of Books, and presents BBC Radio 4’s contemporary history series,...	Bring Home the Revolution
2000	Bella Bathurst	The Lighthouse Stevensons
	Sarah Waters Sarah Waters Sarah Waters is a British novelist. She is best known for her novels set in Victorian society, such as Tipping the Velvet and Fingersmith.-Childhood:Sarah Waters was born in Neyland, Pembrokeshire, Wales in 1966....	Affinity Affinity (novel) Affinity is a 1999 historical fiction novel by Sarah Waters. It is the author's second novel, following Tipping the Velvet, and followed by Fingersmith.-Plot summary:...
2001	Edward Platt	Leadville—A Biography of the A40
	Ben Rice Ben Rice Ben Rice , is a prize-winning British author.Rice was born in Tiverton, Devon, educated at Blundell's School and read English literature at Newcastle University and then Wadham College, Oxford, before studying Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia.His novel Pobby and Dingan was awarded...	Pobby And Dingan
2002	Charlotte Hobson	Black Earth City
	Marcel Theroux Marcel Theroux Marcel Raymond Theroux is a British novelist and broadcaster. He wrote The Stranger in The Earth and The Confessions of Mycroft Holmes: a paper chase for which he won the Somerset Maugham Award in 2002. His third novel, A Blow to the Heart, was published by Faber in 2006. His fourth, Far North was...	The Paperchase The Confessions of Mycroft Holmes: a paper chase The Confessions of Mycroft Holmes: A Paper Chase is the title of a 2001 novel by Marcel Theroux. It was published in the United Kingdom in 2002 as The Paperchase....
2003	William Fiennes William Fiennes (author) William Fiennes is a British author.Fiennes was educated at the Dragon School in Oxford, Eton College, and Oxford University, where he received both undergraduate and graduate degrees...	The Snow Geese
	Hari Kunzru	The Impressionist
	Jon McGregor Jon mcgregor Jon McGregor is a British author who has written three novels; If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, which was nominated for the 2002 Booker Prize, winner of the Betty Trask Prize and winner of the Somerset Maugham Award in 2003, and So Many Ways to Begin, which was published in 2006 and also...	If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things is author Jon McGregor's first novel, first published by Bloomsbury in 2002. It portrays a day in the life of a suburban British street, with the plot alternately following the lives of the street's various inhabitants...
2004	Charlotte Mendelson Charlotte Mendelson -Biography:Her maternal grandparents were, in her words, "Hungarian-speaking-Czech, Ruthenian for about 10 minutes, Carpathian mountain-y, impossible to describe", who left Prague in 1939.She was born in 1972 in west London, in a flat on the Queensway...	Daughters of Jerusalem
	Mark Blayney	Two Kinds of Silence
	Robert Macfarlane Robert Macfarlane Robert Macfarlane, , is a British travel writer and literary critic. Educated at Nottingham High School, Pembroke College, Cambridge and Magdalen College, Oxford, he is currently a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and teaches in the Faculty of English at Cambridge.-Books:Macfarlane's first...	Mountains of the Mind
2005	Justin Hill Justin Hill Justin Hill is an English novelist whose novels have been nominated for the Man Booker Prize three times. Born in Freeport, Grand Bahama Island in 1971, he grew up in Yorkshire. He was educated at the historic St Peter's School, York....	Passing Under Heaven
	Maggie O'Farrell Maggie O'Farrell Maggie O'Farrell is a British author of contemporary fiction, who features in Waterstones' 25 Authors for the Future It is possible to identify several common themes in her novels – the relationship between sisters is one, another is loss and the psychological impact of those losses on the lives...	The Distance Between Us
2006	Chris Cleave Chris Cleave -Biography:Cleave was born in London in 1973, brought up in Cameroon and Buckinghamshire, and educated at Balliol College, Oxford where he studied Psychology. He lives in the United Kingdom with his wife and three children.-Writing:...	Incendiary Incendiary (novel) Incendiary is a novel by British writer Chris Cleave. When it was first published in the summer of 2005, it garnered international headlines for the eerie similarity of its plot to the 7 July 2005 London bombings in England carried out on the same day it was published. It won the 2005...
	Zadie Smith Zadie Smith Zadie Smith is a British novelist. To date she has written three novels. In 2003, she was included on Granta's list of 20 best young authors...	On Beauty On Beauty On Beauty is a 2005 novel by British author Zadie Smith. It takes its title from an essay by Elaine Scarry . The story follows the lives of a mixed-race British/American family living in the United States...
	Owen Sheers Owen Sheers Owen Sheers is a Welsh poet, author, playwright, actor and TV presenter.-Biography:Owen Sheers was born in Suva, Fiji in 1974 and brought up in Abergavenny, South Wales...	Skirrid Hill
2007	Horatio Clare Horatio Clare Horatio Clare is an author and journalist. He worked at the BBC as a producer on Front Row , Night Waves and The Verb . He has written two memoirs, 'Running for the Hills' and 'Truant: Notes from the Slippery Slope' and a travel book, 'A Single Swallow'...	Running For The Hills
	James Scudamore James Scudamore (author) James Scudamore is an author. He grew up in Japan, Brazil and the UK, and is a graduate of Christ Church, Oxford and of the University of East Anglia.-Books:...	The Amnesia Clinic
2008	Steven Hall Steven Hall Steven Hall is a British author. He has written one novel, produced a number of plays, music videos, concrete prose/conceptual art pieces, and short stories....	The Raw Shark Texts The Raw Shark Texts The Raw Shark Texts is the debut novel by author Steven Hall, released in 2007. The book was released by Canongate Books in the US and the UK and published by HarperCollins in Canada...
	Nick Laird Nick Laird Nicholas 'Nick' Laird is a novelist and poet who was born, and grew up, in Cookstown, County Tyrone. He studied at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, where he attained a first in English. He went on to work at the global law firm Allen & Overy in London for six years, before leaving to concentrate...	On Purpose
	Gwendoline Riley Gwendoline Riley Gwendoline Riley is an English writer, born in 1979. Born in London, she attended Manchester Metropolitan University.Her first book, Cold Water, was named one of the five outstanding debut novels of 2002 by The Guardian 'Weekend' magazine and also won a Betty Trask Award. Sick Notes followed in...	Joshua Spassky
	Adam Thirlwell Adam Thirlwell Adam Thirlwell is a British novelist. He was educated at the independent Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, Elstree. He is assistant editor of Areté, an arts tri-quarterly. He also writes a column for Esquire magazine....	Miss Herbert
2009	Adam Foulds Adam Foulds Adam Foulds is a British novelist and poet.-Biography:Foulds was educated at Bancroft's School, read English at St Catherine's College, Oxford under Craig Raine, and graduated with an MA in creative writing from the University of East Anglia in 2001. Foulds published The Truth About These Strange...	The Broken Word
	Alice Albinia Alice Albinia Alice Albinia is a journalist and author whose first book, Empires of the Indus, won several awards.Alice read English Literature at Cambridge and South Asian History at SOAS...	Empires of the Indus
	Rodge Glass Rodge Glass Rodge Glass is a writer. Born and bred in Gatley, Greater Manchester, England, Glass moved to Scotland aged 19 to study at Strathclyde University. He went on to study at Glasgow University before returning to work for the program at Strathclyde in which he himself studied...	Alasdair Gray: A Secretary's Biography
	Henry Hitchings Henry Hitchings Henry Hitchings is an author, reviewer and critic, specializing in narrative non-fiction, with a particular emphasis on language and cultural history...	The Secret Life of Words
	Thomas Leveritt	The Exchange-Rate Between Love and Money
	Helen Walsh Helen Walsh Helen Walsh is an English writer. To date she has written three novels: Brass , Once Upon a Time in England , and Go to Sleep , all of which have been published by Canongate.-Biography:...	Once Upon a Time in England
2010	Jacob Polley Jacob Polley Jacob Polley is a British poet, born in Carlisle, Cumbria.He graduated with an MA in Creative Writing from Lancaster University in 1997....	Talk of the Town
	Helen Oyeyemi Helen Oyeyemi Helen Olajumoke Oyeyemi is a British novelist. She was born in Nigeria and raised in London.She wrote her first novel, The Icarus Girl, while still at school studying for her A levels at Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School....	White is for Witching
	Ben Wilson	What Price Liberty?

External links

• The Somerset Maugham Award - a list of winners
• Somerset Maugham award (PDF)