The James Tait Black Prizes
The James Tait Black Prizes logo

Fiction winners

Winners of the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction.

Barbara Kingsolver (2023 winner)
Barbara Kingsolver (2023 winner)

Please note these are listed by year of publication. 

2020-present

2010–2019

Keith Ridgway - A shock
Keith Ridgway (2022 winner)
Shola von Reinhold - Lote (Jacaranda) - 2020
Shola von Reinhold (2021 winner)

2000–2009

1990–1999

  • Timothy Mo - Renegade or Halo2 (Paddleless Press) - 1999
  • Beryl Bainbridge - Master Georgie (Duckworth) - 1998
  • Andrew Miller - Ingenious Pain (Sceptre) - 1997
  • Joint Award: Graham Swift - Last Orders (Picador Macmillan) and Alice Thompson - Justine (Canongate) - 1996
  • Christopher Priest - The Prestige (Touchstone) - 1995
  • Alan Hollinghurst - The Folding Star (Chatto & Windus) - 1994
  • Caryl Phillips - Crossing The River (Bloomsbury) - 1993
  • Rose Tremain - Sacred Country (Sinclair Stevenson) - 1992
  • Iain Sinclair - Downriver (Michael Joseph) - 1991
  • William Boyd - Brazzaville Beach (Sinclair Stevenson) - 1990

1980–1989

  • James Kelman - A Disaffection (Secker & Warburg) - 1989
  • Piers Paul Read - A Season In The West (Secker & Warburg) - 1988
  • George Mackay Brown - The Golden Bird: Two Orkney Stories (John Murray) - 1987
  • Jenny Joseph - Persephone (Bloodaxe Books) - 1986
  • Robert Edric - Winter Garden (André Deutsch) - 1985
  • Joint Award: J. G. Ballard - Empire Of The Sun (Gollancz) and Angela Carter - Nights At The Circus (Chatto & Windus) - 1984
  • Jonathan Keates - Allegro Postillions (Salamander Press) - 1983
  • Bruce Chatwin - On The Black Hill (Cape) - 1982
  • Joint Award: Salman Rushdie - Midnight's Children (Cape) and Paul Theroux - The Mosquito Coast (Hamish Hamilton) - 1981
  • J. M. Coetzee - Waiting For The Barbarians (Secker & Warburg) - 1980

1970–1979

  • William Golding - Darkness Visible (Faber) - 1979
  • Maurice Gee - Plumb (Faber) - 1978
  • John Le Carré - The Honourable Schoolboy (Hodder & Stoughton) - 1977
  • John Banville - Doctor Copernicus (Secker & Warburg) - 1976
  • Brian Moore - The Great Victorian Collection (Cape) - 1975
  • Lawrence Durrell - Monsieur, Or The Prince Of Darkness - 1974
  • Iris Murdoch - The Black Prince - 1973
  • John Berger - G - 1972
  • Nadine Gordimer - A Guest Of Honour - 1971
  • Lily Powell - The Bird Of Paradise - 1970

1960–1969

  • Elizabeth Bowen - Eva Trout - 1969
  • Maggie Ross - The Gasteropod - 1968
  • Margaret Drabble - Jerusalem The Golden - 1967
  • Joint Award: Christine Brooke-Rose - Such and Aidan Higgins - Langrishe, Go Down - 1966
  • Muriel Spark - The Mandelbaum Gate - 1965
  • Frank Tuohy - The Ice Saints - 1964
  • Gerda Charles - A Slanting Light - 1963
  • Ronald Hardy - Act Of Destruction - 1962
  • Jennifer Dawson - The Ha-Ha - 1961
  • Rex Warner - Imperial Caesar - 1960

1950–1959

  • Morris West - The Devil's Advocate - 1959
  • Angus Wilson - The Middle Age Of Mrs Eliot - 1958
  • Anthony Powell - At Lady Molly's - 1957
  • Rose Macauley - The Towers Of Trebizond - 1956
  • Ivy Compton-Burnett - Mother And Son - 1955
  • C. P. Snow - The New Men and The Masters in sequence - 1954
  • Margaret Kennedy - Troy Chimneys - 1953
  • Evelyn Waugh - Men At Arms - 1952
  • W. C. Chapman-Mortimer - Father Goose - 1951
  • Robert Henriquez - Along The Valley - 1950

1940–1949

  • Emma Smith - The Far Cry - 1949
  • Graham Greene - The Heart Of The Matter - 1948
  • L. P. Hartley - Eustace And Hilda - 1947
  • G. Oliver Onions - Poor Man's Tapestry - 1946
  • L. A. G. Strong - Travellers - 1945
  • Forrest Reid - Young Tom - 1944
  • Mary Lavin - Tales From Bective Bridge - 1943
  • Arthur Whaley - Monkey By Wu Ch'eng-en - 1942
  • Joyce Cary - A House Of Children - 1941
  • Charles Morgan - The Voyage - 1940

1930–1939

  • Aldous Huxley - After Many A Summer Dies The Swan - 1939
  • C. S. Forester - A Ship Of The Line and Flying Colours - 1938
  • Neil M. Gunn - Highland River - 1937
  • Winifred Holtby - South Riding - 1936
  • L. H. Myers - The Root And The Flower - 1935
  • Robert Graves - I, Claudius and Claudius The God - 1934
  • A. G. Macdonell - England, Their England - 1933
  • Helen Simpson - Boomerang - 1932
  • Kate O'Brien - Without My Cloak - 1931
  • E. H. Young - Miss Mole - 1930

1919–1929

  • J. B. Priestley - The Good Companions - 1929
  • Siegfried Sassoon - Memoirs Of A Fox-Hunting Man - 1928
  • Francis Brett Young - Portrait Of Clare - 1927
  • Radclyffe Hall - Adam's Breed - 1926
  • Liam O'Flaherty - The Informer - 1925
  • E. M. Forster - A Passage To India - 1924
  • Arnold Bennett - Riceyman Steps - 1923
  • David Garnett - Lady Into Fox - 1922
  • Walter de la Mare - Memoirs Of A Midget - 1921
  • D. H. Lawrence - The Lost Girl - 1920
  • Hugh Walpole - The Secret City - 1919