The novelist Hari Kunzru and journalist David Sexton have been announced as judges for this year’s Goldsmiths Prize. The annual £10,000 award, which runs in collaboration with the New Statesman, celebrates fiction that “embodies the spirit of invention that characterises the novel at its best”.
Kunzru is the acclaimed author of seven novels including Gods Without Men, White Tears, and Red Pill, as well as an essayist. His work has been translated into more than twenty languages. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and teaches in the Creative Writing program at New York University.
Sexton was the former Literary Editor of the London Evening Standard from 1997 to 2020, before becoming a regular contributor and film critic at the New Statesman. He has previously served as a judge of the 2005 Booker Prize, and won Critic of the Year in the 2014 Press Awards. He
Also joining the judging panel is Kate Briggs, whose first novel The Long Form was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize in 2023. She is a translator, editor and writer based in Rotterdam where she co-runs the micro-press Short Pieces That Move! She was awarded a Windham-Campbell Prize for her non-fiction work in 2021.
Francis Spufford completes the panel as the Chair of Judges. He is the author of three published novels, including Light Perpetual which was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2021. His upcoming historical fantasy novel, Nonesuch, is set to be published in February 2026 by Faber. He is Professor of Creative Writing at Goldsmiths University.
The winner of last year’s Goldsmiths Prize was We Live Here Now by CD Rose. The judges praised the book’s power to “undermine both the traditional workings of novelistic plot and the ontological status of the fictional characters that are supposedly ‘developed’ by it.” Previous winners include Ali Smith, Isabel Waidner, Lucy Ellmann and Kevin Barry.
This year’s prize opens for submissions on 21 January 2026 and the winner will be announced at a ceremony on 4 November.
[See also: Why CD Rose won the 2025 Goldsmiths Prize for fiction]
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