The Encore Award
The Encore Award was first presented in 1990 to celebrate the achievement of outstanding second novels. The Award fills a niche in the catalogue of literary prizes. The RSL has administrated the award since 2016.
The Encore Award 2022
We are excited to announce that Francis Spufford has won the 2022 Encore Award for Light Perpetual (Faber & Faber). The annual Prize of £10,000 is awarded for best second novel of the year.
‘If the defining characteristic of fiction is “making it up,” Francis Spufford’s Light Perpetual is a triumph in the form. Opening with an actual V-2 attack on the New Cross Road branch of Woolworths in 1944 that killed 168 people, Spufford invents five children and imagines their lives as if they did not die that day, telling their alternative histories through the 20th century. This version of “what might have been” affords us memorable and moving insights into what we have come to think of as our own reality. Light Perpetual is a bold and poignant novel, one that encourages the reader to fully comprehend that the lives of others, even people they have not and will never meet, are as vivid and filled with meaning as their own; a remarkable work of empathy. This is an assured second novel from Spufford, who has fast become one of Britain’s most exciting fiction writers after his debut Golden Hill. It is a great pleasure to award this novel the Encore, and to wonder at what he might write next.’
– Encore Award Judges Sian Cain, Paul Muldoon and Nikesh Shukla‘I’m unusually old for a second-time novelist, having taken so long to get up my courage to write fiction – but that makes me all the more grateful, and all the more heartened, for the vote of confidence the Encore Award represents. It’s a beacon for writers of any age who are negotiating the tricky territory that follows a first book. It’s a call to persist, as you discover how rich and how plural the art is in which you’re taking your second step.’
– Francis Spufford, Winner of the Encore Award 2022
Watch our announcement video here:
Read the press release for more information.
This year’s five shortlisted novels, as chosen by judges Sian Cain, Nikesh Shukla and Paul Muldoon, are:
The High House Jessie Greengrass (Swift Press)
Maxwell’s Demon Steven Hall (Canongate)
The Giant Dark Sarvat Hasin (Little Brown)
Light Perpetual Francis Spufford (Faber & Faber)
Asylum Road Olivia Sudjic (Bloomsbury)
For press enquiries relating to the Encore Award please contact Clair Chamberlain at Bread and Butter PR: [email protected]
For questions about awards and prizes, please contact Martha Stenhouse, General Manager, [email protected].
You can support us and independent bookshops by purchasing shortlisted titles from our Bookshop.org store:
Past Awards
*Joint winners
2021 | Caoilinn Hughes | The Wild Laughter |
2020 | Patrick McGuinness | Throw Me to the Wolves |
2019 | Sally Rooney | Normal People |
2018* | Andrew Michael Hurley Lisa McInerney |
Devil’s Day The Blood Miracles |
2017 | Ian McGuire | The North Water |
2015 | Sunjeev Sahota | The Year of the Runaways |
2014 | Neel Mukherjee | The Lives of Others |
2013 | Evie Wyld | All the Birds, Singing |
2012 | Ned Beauman | The Teleportation Accident |
2011 | Joe Dunthorne | Wild Abandon |
2010 | Adam Foulds | The Quickening Maze |
2009 | Julia Leigh | Disquiet |
2007 | M.J. Hyland | Carry Me Down |
2005 | Nadeem Aslam | Maps for Lost Lovers |
2004 | Michelle de Kretser | The Hamilton Case |
2003 | Jeremy Gavron | The Book of Israel |
2002 | Ali Smith | Hotel World |
2001 | Anne Enright | What Are You Like? |
2000* | John Burnside Claire Messud Matt Thorne Phil Whitaker |
The Mercy Boys The Last Life Eight Minutes Idle Triangulation |
1999 | Christina Koning | Undiscovered Country |
1998* | Alan Warner Timothy O’Grady |
These Demented Lands I could Read the Sky |
1997 | David Flusfeder | Like Plastic |
1996 | A.L. Kennedy | So I Am Glad |
1995 | Dermot Healy | A Goat’s Song |
1994 | Amit Chaudhuri | Afternoon Raag |
1993 | Colm Tóibín | The Heather Blazing |
1992 | Iain Sinclair | Downriver |
1991 | Carey Harrison | Richard’s Feet |
1990* | Paul Watkins Peter Benson |
Calm at Sunset, Calm at Dawn A Lesser Dependency |