Awarded annually to a debut novelist whose first work disturbs the language. The prize honours the brave, the unfinished, the gestural — those who write as if dragging a wet brush across the page. ↳ Read the manifesto
Thirteen debuts, chosen from 1,842 submissions. Each disturbs in its own register.
"She kept the letters in the larder, where the salt could read them. Each morning a new word had been eaten through the paper, as if punctuation were a hungry animal."
"The house was not abandoned; it was waiting. Furniture held its breath. Even the dust had agreed, in some prior century, to remain neutral on the question of ghosts."
"To map a country one must first agree to lose oneself within it. My grandmother lost herself daily, and so she carried, in her mouth, the most accurate cartography I have ever known."
Assembled each spring by the Veridian Trust. Their deliberations are sealed; only the verdict survives.
Author of The Eleventh Hour. Booker shortlisted, 2019. Teaches at UCL.
Senior reviewer at the London Review of Books since 2014.
Editorial Director at Granta Books. Discovered nine debuts now in print.
Translates from Japanese and Korean. PEN Award, 2022.
Previous Veridian winner. Author of A Bright Catastrophe.
Next cycle opens 01 MAR 2026 and closes 31 MAY 2026. Open to debut novelists worldwide, in English or in translation.
Open to writers who have not previously published a full-length work of fiction in any language. Self-published works under 500 print copies are eligible. Authors may submit one work per cycle.
Manuscripts between 60,000 and 140,000 words. Submitted as a single PDF, double-spaced, Times or Tiempos, 12pt. Include a 250-word synopsis on a separate page.
Submissions: 01 March – 31 May. Longlist announced 12 September. Shortlist 10 October. Winner declared at the Bloomsbury Ceremony, 14 November.
£50,000 to the laureate. £2,500 to each shortlisted author. A two-month residency at Casa Pasternak in Lisbon for the winner.
Reading fee waived for writers under 25 or in receipt of public benefits. Anonymous submissions reviewed by an independent reader panel.