The Whitbread Book Awards are a prestigious literary prize first awarded in 1971. The exact format of the awards has changed over the years but currently there are 5 categories of prize. Best novel, best first novel, best poetry, best biography and best childrens novel. A short list for each category is drawn up and a panel of judges then decides the winner for each category. The Whitbread Book of the Year is then selected from one of the 5 winners.
To be elegible for a Whitbread book award the author must have been a resident in the UK or Ireland for a period of at least 6 months. So as long as the author fulfills this requirement they can be of any nationality.
The individual category winners of the 2005 Whitbread book awards were announced on the 4th of January 2006. The Whitbread book of the Year was announced on the 24th January 2006, where the winner was awarded £25,000 as a prize in addition to the £5,000 awarded previously for winning their category.
Year | Whitbread Book of the Year | Whitbread Novel Award | Whitbread 1st Novel Award | Whitbreads Children's Book Award | Whitbread Biography Award | Whitbread Poetry Award |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2005 | ||||||
2005 | Matisse the Master - Hilary Spurling | The Accidental - Ali Smith | The Harmony Silk Factory - Tash Aw | The New Policeman - Kate Thompson | Matisse the Master - Hilary Spurling | Cold Calls - Christopher Logue |
2004 | Small Island - Andrea Levy | Small Island - Andrea Levy | Eve Green - Susan Fletcher | Not the End of the World - Geraldine McCaughrean | My Heart is My Own: The Life of Mary Queen of Scots - John Guy | Corpus - Michael Simmons Roberts |
2003 | The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon | The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon | Vernon God Little - DBC Pierre | The Fire-Eaters - David Almond | Orwell: The Life - DJ Taylor | Landing Light - Don Paterson |
2002 | Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self - Claire Tomalin | Spies - Michael Frayn | The Song of Names - Norman Lebrecht | Saffy’s Angel - Hilary McKay | Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self - Claire Tomalin | The Ice Age - Paul Farley |
2001 | The Amber Spyglass - Philip Pullman | Twelve Bar Blues -Patrick Neate | Something Like a House - Sid Smith | The Amber Spyglass - Philip Pullman | Selkirk’s Island - Diana Souhami | Bunny - Selima Hill |
2000 | English Passengers - Matthew Kneale | English Passengers - Matthew Kneale | White Teeth - Zadie Smith | Coram Boy - Jamila Gavin | Bad Blood - Lorna Sage | The Asylum Dance - John Burnside |
1999 | Beowulf - Seamus Heaney | Music and Silence - Rose Tremain | White City Blue - Tim Lott | Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - J K Rowling | Berlioz, Volume 2 - David Cairns | Beowulf - Seamus Heaney |
1998 | Birthday Letters - Ted Hughes | Leading the Cheers - Justin Cartwright | The Last King of Scotland - Giles Foden | Skellig - David Almond | Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire - Amanda Foreman | Birthday Letters - Ted Hughes |
1997 | Tales from Ovid - Ted Hughes | Quarantine - Jim Crace | The Ventriloquist’s Tale - Pauline Melville | Aquila - Andrew Norriss | Victor Hugo - Graham Robb | Tales from Ovid - Ted Hughes |
1996 | The Spirit Level - Seamus Heaney | Every Man for Himself - Beryl Bainbridge | The Debt to Pleasure - John Lanchester | The Tulip Touch - Anne Fine | Thomas Cranmer: A Life - Diarmaid MacCulloch | The Spirit Level - Seamus Heaney |
1995 | Behind the Scenes at the Museum - Kate Atkinson | The Moor’s Last Sigh - Salman Rushdie | Behind the Scenes at the Museum - Kate Atkinson | The Wreck of the Zanzibar - Michael Morpurgo | Gladstone - Roy Jenkins | Gunpowder - Bernard O’Donoghue |
1994 | Felicia's Journey - William Trevor | Felicia's Journey - William Trevor | The Longest Memory - Fred D'Aguiar | Gold Dust - Geraldine McCaughrean | D H Lawrence: The Married Man - Brenda Maddox | Out of Danger - James Fenton |
1993 | Theory of War - Joan Brady | Theory of War - Joan Brady | Saving Agnes -Rachel Cusk | Flour Babies - Anne Fine | Philip Larkin: A Writer’s Life - Andrew Motion | Mean Time - Carol Ann Duffy |
1992 | Swing Hammer Swing! - Jeff Torrington | Poor Things - Alasdair Gray | Swing Hammer Swing! - Jeff Torrington | The Great Elephant Chase - Gillian Cross | Trollope - Victoria Glendinning | The Gaze of the Gorgon - Tony Harrison |
1991 | A Life of Picasso - John Richardson | The Queen of the Tambourine - Jane Gardam | Alma Cogan - Gordon Burn | Harvey Angell - Diana Hendry | A Life of Picasso - John Richardson | Gorse Fires - Michael Longley |
1990 | Hopeful Monsters - Nicholas Mosley | Hopeful Monsters - Nicholas Mosley | The Buddha of Suburbia - Hanif Kureishi | AK - Peter Dickinson | A A Milne: His Life - Ann Thwaite | Daddy, Daddy - Paul Durcan |
1989 | Coleridge: Early Visions - Richard Holmes | The Chymical Wedding - Lindsay Clarke | Gerontius - James Hamilton-Paterson | Why Weeps the Brogan? - Hugh Scott | Coleridge: Early Visions - Richard Holmes | Shibboleth - Michael Donaghy |
1988 | The Comforts of Madness - Paul Sayer | The Satanic Verses - Salman Rushdie | The Comforts of Madness - Paul Sayer | Awaiting Developments - Judy Allen | Tolstoy - A N Wilson | The Automatic Oracle - Peter Porter |
1987 | Under the Eye of the Clock - Christopher Nolan | The Child in Time - Ian McEwan | The Other Garden - Francis Wyndham | A Little Lower than the Angels - Geraldine McCaughrean | Under the Eye of the Clock - Christopher Nolan | The Haw Lantern - Seamus Heaney |
1986 | An Artist of the Floating World - Kazuo Ishiguro | An Artist of the Floating World - Kazuo Ishiguro | Continent - Jim Crace | The Coal House - Andrew Taylor | Gilbert White - Richard Mabey | Stet - Peter Reading |
1985 | Elegies - Douglas Dunn | Hawksmoor - Peter Ackroyd | Oranges are not the only Fruit - Jeanette Winterson | The Nature of the Beast - Janni Howker | Hugh Dalton - Ben Pimlott | Elegies - Douglas Dunn |
Year | Book of the Year | Whitbread Novel Award | Whitbread 1st Novel Award | Whitbreads Children's Book Award | Whitbread Biography Award | Short Story Award |
1984 | - | Kruger's Alp - Christopher Hope | A Parish of Rich Women - James Buchan | The Queen of the Pharisees' Children - Barbara Willard | T S Eliot - Peter Ackroyd | Tomorrow is our Permanent Address - Diane Rowe |
1983 | - | Fools of Fortune - William Trevor | Flying to Nowhere - John Fuller | The Witches - Roald Dahl | Vita - Victoria Glendinning & King George V - Kenneth Rose | - |
1982 | - | Young Shoulders - John Wain | On the BlackHill - Bruce Chatwin | The Song of Pentecost - W J Corbett | Bismarck - Edward Crankshaw | - |
1981 | - | Silver's City - Maurice Leitch | A Good Man in Africa - William Boyd | The Hollow Land - Jane Gardam | Monty: The Making of a general - Nigel Hamilton | - |
1980 | - | How Far Can You Go? - David Lodge | - | John Diamond - Leon Garfield | On the Edge of Paradise: A C Benson the Diarist - David Newsome | - |
1979 | - | The Old Jest - Jennifer Johnston | - | Tulku - Peter Dickinson | About Time - Penelope Mortimer | - |
1978 | - | Picture Palace - Paul Theroux | - | The Battle of Bubble & Squeak - Philippa Pearce | Lloyd George: The People's Champion - John Grigg | - |
1977 | - | Injury Time - Beryl Bainbridge | - | No End to Yesterday Shelagh - Macdonald | Mary Curzon - Nigel Nicolson | - |
1976 | - | The Children of Dynmouth - William Trevor | - | A Stitch in Time - Penelope Lively | Elizabeth Gaskell - Winifred Gerin | - |
Year | Book of the Year | Whitbread Novel Award | 1st Book Award | Whitbreads Children's Book Award | Whitbread Biography Award | Whitbread Poetry Award |
1975 | - | Docherty - William McIlvanney | The Improbable Puritan: A Life of Bulstrode Whitelock - Ruth Spalding | - | In Our Infancy - Helen Corke | - |
1974 | - | The Sacred & Profane Love Machine - Iris Murdoch | The Life & Death of Mary Wollstonecraft - Claire Tomalin | How Tom Beat Captain Najork & His Hired Sportsmen - Russell Hoban & Quentin Blake & The Emperor's Winding Sheet - Jill Paton Walsh (joint) | Poor Dear Brendan - Andrew Boyle | - |
1973 | - | The Chip Chip Gatherers - Shiva Naipaul | - | The Butterfly Ball & The Grasshopper's Feast - Alan Aldridge & William Plomer | CB: A Life of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman - John Wilson | - |
1972 | - | The Bird of Night - Susan Hill | - | The Diddakoi - Rumer Godden | Trollope - James Pope-Hennessey | - |
1971 | - | The Destiny Waltz - Gerda Charles | - | - | Henrik Ibsen - Michael Meyer | Mercian Hymns - Geoffrey Hill |