The 2025 Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize shortlist has finally been announced and it features novels spanning across a vast range of topics and genres. Currently in its fourth year, the Debut Fiction Prize is voted for by Waterstones booksellers, with the honour being awarded to exceptional debut novels and highlights the value of discovering and championing new talent.
Serving as an extension to booksellers’ word-of-mouth recommendations, the award celebrates fiction in all its forms. Six debut novels and their authors have been shortlisted this year, including a first-ever nomination for a translated book.
This year’s shortlist takes readers from the metropolises of New York and London to the depths of the Provençal countryside and rural Ireland, via a Swedish cabin and a holy Indian river.
After being announced as last year’s winner, Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon quickly soared up the bestseller charts and provided Ferdia with a much larger platform — leading to several accolades and further recognition for the debut author. Ferdia went on to get nominated for many major prizes including the Waterstones Book of the Year, the BAMB Fiction award, the Dylan Thomas Prize, and the Nero Book Awards.
Before Ferdia Lennon’s 2024 win, the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize was awarded to Alice Winn in 2023 for her novel In Memoriam and to Tess Gunty’s The Rabbit Hutch in 2022. Tess’ novel also went on to win the 2022 National Book Award for Fiction, while Tess bagged the Indiana Authors Awards in 2024.
Waterstones has selected six “astonishingly impressive and inspiring new voices” for its fourth debut fiction prize shortlist, including Catherine Airey, William Rayfet Hunter and Lucy Steeds.
The shortlist, which also features Gurnaik Johal, Niamh Ní Mhaoileoin and Lisa Ridzén, represents a “bright and promising future for fiction”, said Bea Carvalho, head of books at Waterstones.
Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize 2025 Shortlist:
Confessions by Catherine Airey, Penguin
Mining girlhood, womanhood and the delicate spot in between with elegance and urgency, Airey’s striking debut follows a teenager orphaned by the 9/11 attack as she comes in contact with her estranged family in small town Ireland.
Saraswati by Gurnaik Johal, Profile
Blending political satire with ecological parable, Gurnaik Johal’s bold, capacious debut finds the lives of seven individuals transformed, as an ancient sacred river springs back to life in a rapidly changing contemporary India.
Ordinary Saints by Niamh Ní Mhaoileoin, Bonnier
Provocative, funny and mercilessly observant, Niamh Ní Mhaoileoin’s striking debut novel mines the complexities of familial love and grief through richly layered characters who wrestle with questions of faith and belonging in present-day Ireland.
Sunstruck by William Rayfet Hunter, Merky
Sensual yet searing, Hunter’s acutely observed novel mines themes of race, status and identity, as a working-class Black man attempts to navigate the opulent world of a wealthy family.
When the Cranes Fly South by Lisa Ridzén, translated by Alice Menzies, Transworld
A bestselling sensation in Ridzén’s native Sweden, When the Cranes Fly South is a beautifully bittersweet novel about an ageing man desperate to mend his relationship with his son before it’s too late.
The Artist by Lucy Steeds, John Murray
Richly evocative of a Provencal summer, Steeds’ masterly 1920s-set character study focuses on an enigmatic painter, the young British journalist set on penning a piece on him and the artist’s unworldly niece – who harbours an unexpected secret.
The winner of the prize will be announced on 24 July, and is set to receive £5,000 along with the “promise of ongoing commitment to the winner’s writing career”.
