We are delighted that ENGLAND IS MINE by Nicolas Padamsee has been shortlisted for the Society of Authors Betty Trask Prize 2025.

The annual Society of Authors’ Awards recognises the best and most promising literary voices of the year. The Awards ceremony is generously supported by the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS).

Betty Trask left a bequest to the Society of Authors in 1983 to fund prizes for first novels written by authors under the age of 35 in a traditional or romantic style.

Each year a single prize winner receives £10,000 and the remaining fund is split between the shortlist.

Judged by Andrew Cowan, Daisy Lafarge and Stephanie Sy-Quia.

Judge Andrew Cowan said: "Whether politically urgent, exquisitely lyrical, or strange and surreal; whether expansive or economical, comic or introspective, set now or in the past, each of these skilful novels is brimming with wit and invention. Together they demonstrate the wonderfully open-ended possibilities for the contemporary novel."