Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year. Winners. Shortlists. News.

p>Launched 17 years ago, the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year award has become an unfailingly reliable guide to the best new British literary talent. Authors first spotted by the award have gone on to win or be shortlisted for a host of other prizes – the Man Booker (Zadie Smith, Caryl Phillips and Sarah Waters), the Wolfson (William Dalrymple), the Forward (Paul Farley), the TS Eliot (Simon Armitage).

The prize is open to British authors under 35 and is awarded at the Oxford literary festival each year.

2008 Award Winner & Shortlist

Adam Foulds The Truth about these Strange Times (Weidenfeld)

2008 Other Shortlisted

Nikita Lalwani’s Gifted (Viking)

James McConnachie The Book of Love (Atlantic)

Robert Macfarlane The Wild Places (Granta).

The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Winners 1991-2007

2007 Naomi Alderman Disobedience (Viking)

2001 Zadie Smith White Teeth (Hamish Hamilton)

2000 Sarah Waters Affinity (Little, Brown)

1999 Paul Farley The Boy from the Chemist is Here to See You (Picador Macmillan)

1998 Patrick French Liberty or Death (HarperCollins)

1997 Francis Spufford I May Be Some Time (Faber & Faber)

1996 Katherine Pierpoint Truffle Beds(Faber & Faber)

1995 Andrew Cowan Pig (Michael Joseph Penguin)

1994 William Dalrymple City of Djinns (HarperCollins)

1993 Simon Armitage Xanadu (Bloodaxe) Kid (Faber & Faber)

1992 Caryl Phillips Cambridge (Bloomsbury)

1991 Helen Simpson Four Bare Legs in a Bed (Heinemann)