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Costa Awards for Literature

The Costa Awards were originally known as the Whitbread Prize from 1971 until 2006. Costa Coffee then took over sponsorship of the Awards.

These Literature Awards are given in five categories:

Best First Novel
Best Novel
Best Biography
Best Poetry
Best Children's Book

What's unique about these Costa Awards is that since 1986 ... a Book of the Year Award has been given to one of the five award winners.

In 2006, Stef Penney's novel, The Tenderness of Wolves won Best First Novel. She then received the Book of the Year Award.

The Award rules require that the authors must be from the UK or Ireland.


Here is the shortlist for the 2008 Costa Awards for Best Novel and Best First Novel:

Best Novel:

Author

Book

Publisher


Sebastion Barry


The Secret Scripture


Faber and Faber


Chris Cleve


The Other Hand


Sceptre


Louis de Bernieres


A Partisan's Daughter


Harvill Secker


Patrick McGrath


Trauma


Bloomsbury


Best First Novel:

Author

Book

Publisher


Poppy Adams


The Behaviour of Moths


Virago Press


Sadie Jones


The Outcast


Chatto and Windus


Jennie Rooney


Inside The Whale

Chatto and Windus


Tom Rob Smith


Child 44

Simon and Schuster























The winners will be announced in January 2009.


Here are the award winners since 1986 for the Best First Novel and the Book of the Year:

Best First Novel

Year Author Book
2007 Catherine O'Flynn What Was Lost
2006 Stef Penney The Tenderness of Wolves
2005 Tash Aw The Harmony Silk Factory
2004 Susan Fletcher Eve Green
2003 DBC Pierre Vernon God Little
2002 Norman Lebrecht The Song of Names
2001 Sid Smith Something Like a House
2000 Zadie Smith White Teeth
1999 Tim Lott Windy City Blue
1998 Giles Foden The Last King of Scotland
1997 Pauline Melville The Ventriloquist's Tale
1996 John Lanchester A Debt to Pleasure
1995 Kate Atkinson Behind the Scenes at the Museum
1994 Fred D'Aguiar The Longest Memory
1993 Rachel Cusk Saving Agnes
1992 Jeff Torrington Swing Hammer Swing!
1991 Gordon Burn Alma Cogan
1990 Hanif Kureishi The Buddah of Suburbia
1989 James Hamilton-Paterson Gerontius
1988 Paul Sayer The Comforts of Madness
1987 Francis Wyndham The Other Garden
1986 Jim Crace Continent



Book of the Year

Year Author Book
2007 A. L. Kennedy Day
2006 Stef Penney The Tenderness of Wolves
2005 Hilary Spurling Matisse the Master : A Life of Henri Matisse
2004 Andrea Levy Small Island
2003 Mark Haddon The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
2002 Claire Tomalin Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self
2001 Philip Pullman The Amber Spyglass
2000 Matthew Kneales English Passengers
1999 Seamus Heaney Beowulf
1998 Ted Hughes Birthday Letters
1997 Ted Hughes Tales of Ovid
1996 Seamus Heaney The Spirit Level
1995 Kate Atkinson Behind the Scenes at the Museum
1994 William Trevor Felicia's Journey
1993 Joan Brady Theory of War
1992 Jeff Torrington Swing Hammer Swing!
1990 Nicholas Mosley Hopeful Monsters
1988 Paul Sayer The Comfort of Madness
1986 Kazuo Ishiguro An Artist of the Floating World
1988 Paul Sayer The Comforts of Madness
1987 Francis Wyndham The Other Garden
1986 Jim Crace Continent


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