The Betty Trask Prize and Awards are for first novels written by authors under the age of 35, who reside in a current or former Commonwealth nation. Each year the awards total £20,000, with one author receiving a larger prize amount, called the "Prize", and the remainder given to one or more other writers, called the "Awards".[1] The award was established in 1984 by the Society of Authors, at the bequest of the late Betty Trask, a reclusive author of over thirty romance novels.[2] The awards are given to traditional or romantic novels, rather than those of an experimental style, and can be for published or unpublished works.[3]
| 1984 | Winter Journey | £6,750 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cold Showers | £6,750 | ||
| £1,000 | |||
| Playing Fields in Winter | £1,000 | ||
| £1,000 | |||
| £1,000 | |||
| 1985 | Legacy | £12,500 | |
| £1,000 | |||
| £1,000 | |||
| Instead of Eden | £1,000 | ||
| £1,000 | |||
| £1,000 | |||
| 1986 | Tongues of Flame | £9,000 | |
| Family, Myths and Legends | £4,500 | ||
| Mzungu's Wife | £1,000 | ||
| Whore Banquets | £1,000 | ||
| £1,000 | |||
| £1,000 | |||
| 1987 | Hard Luck | £8,000 | |
| £4,500 | |||
| Return Journey | £4,500 | ||
| Lost Time | £1,000 | ||
| Gestures | £1,000 | ||
| £1,000 | |||
| 1988 | £6,500 | ||
| £6,500 | |||
| Behind the Waterfall | £2,000 | ||
| Left of North | £2,000 | ||
| Burning Your Own | £2,000 | ||
| Small Tales of a Town | £2,000 | ||
| 1989 | £10,000 | ||
| Watercolour Sky | £5,000 | ||
| Harry's Last Wedding | £2,000 | ||
| Uncle Henry's Last Stand | £2,000 |
| 1990 | Ripley Bogle | £16,000 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| £3,000 | |||
| No Strange Land | £3,000 | ||
| £3,000 | |||
| 1991 | £10,000 | ||
| Teaching Little Fang | £7,000 | ||
| Quite Contrary | £2,000 | ||
| Honour Thy Father | £2,000 | ||
| £2,000 | |||
| Lives of the Saints | £2,000 | ||
| 1992 | Kissing Through a Pane of Glass | £5,000 | |
| Under the Frog | £3,000 | ||
| £3,000 | |||
| £3,000 | |||
| Never Mind | £3,000 | ||
| 1993 | You'll Never be Here Again | £10,000 | |
| Pig | £7,000 | ||
| Tommy Was Here | £5,000 | ||
| Mothers and Other Lovers | £2,000 | ||
| Landing on Clouds | £2,000 | ||
| 1994 | Divorcing Jack | £12,000 | |
| Season of the Rainbirds | £10,000 | ||
| After the Hole | £1,000 | ||
| £1,000 | |||
| Some Hope | £1,000 | ||
| 1995 | Dependence Day | £10,000 | |
| £8,000 | |||
| Midnight Feast | £3,000 | ||
| £1,000 | |||
| Hallelujah Jordan | £1,000 | ||
| £1,000 | |||
| £1,000 | |||
| 1996 | £8,000 | ||
| Anita and Me | £7,000 | ||
| £5,000 | |||
| £5,000 | |||
| 1997 | £12,000 | ||
| Poker Face | £5,000 | ||
| Beach Boy | £5,000 | ||
| Some Kind of Black | £1,500 | ||
| Theory of Mind | £1,500 | ||
| 1998 | Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard | £10,000 | |
| Zigzag Street | £8,000 | ||
| Eclipse of the Sun | £5,000 | ||
| Underground | £1,000 | ||
| £1,000 | |||
| 1999 | Three Dollars | £7,000 | |
| In a Fishbone Church | £6,000 | ||
| £4,000 | |||
| Olympia | £3,000 | ||
| In Beautiful Disguises | £2,500 | ||
| Tipping the Velvet | £1,000 |
Since 2009, the Betty Trask Prize has been given to a single author; the remaining receive the Betty Trask Award. A blue ribbon indicates the winner for that year.
| 2000 | £10,000 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| £7,000 | ||||
| Sunset Over Chocolate Mountains | £4,000 | |||
| By the Shore | £2,000 | |||
| £2,000 | ||||
| 2001 | White Teeth | £8,000 | ||
| £5,000 | ||||
| After You'd Gone | £5,000 | |||
| Take One Young Man | £4,000 | |||
| Moth Smoke | £2,500 | |||
| Musungu Jim and the Great Chief Tuloko | £2,500 | |||
| 2002 | £8,000 | [4] | ||
| £5,000 | ||||
| £4,000 | ||||
| My Summer of Love | £2,000 | |||
| £2,000 | ||||
| £2,000 | ||||
| Cold Water | £2,000 | |||
| 2003 | If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things | £10,000 | ||
| Haweswater | £6,000 | |||
| Gaveston | £4,000 | |||
| Nightdancing | £2,000 | |||
| Negative Space | £2,000 | |||
| Politics | £1,000 | |||
| 2004 | Becoming Strangers | £8,000 | ||
| £6,000 | ||||
| £3,000 | ||||
| £3,000 | ||||
| 2005 | Eve Green | £16,000 | ||
| 26a | £2,000 | |||
| Brass | £2,000 | |||
| 2006 | Utterly Monkey | £10,000 | ||
| £5,000 | ||||
| £5,000 | ||||
| 2007 | My Side of the Story | £10,000 | ||
| £2,500 | ||||
| £2,500 | ||||
| You Can Live Forever | £2,500 | |||
| In Search of the Missing Eyelash | £2,500 | |||
| 2008 | London and the South | £10,000 | ||
| God's Own Country | £6,000 | |||
| £2,000 | ||||
| £2,000 | ||||
| 2009 | £12,000 | |||
| £8,000 |
| 2010 | Black Mamba Boy | £10,000 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| After the Fire, A Still Small Voice | £7,000 | |||
| £1,500 | ||||
| I Do Not Come To You By Chance | £1,500 | |||
| 2011 | Saraswati Park | £10,000 | [5] | |
| Twenty-One Locks | £6,000 | |||
| Rupture | £2,500 | |||
| Luke and Jon | £2,500 | |||
| 2012 | Bed | £8,000 | ||
| £3,000 | ||||
| Scissors, Paper, Stone | £3,000 | |||
| My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece | £3,000 | |||
| Hungry the Stars and Everything | £3,000 | |||
| 2013 | £8,000 | |||
| £7,000 | ||||
| £2,500 | ||||
| Care of Wooden Floors | £2,500 | |||
| 2014 | £10,000 | [6] | ||
| We Need New Names | £3,750 | |||
| Idiopathy | £3,750 | |||
| Chaplin and Company | £3,750 | |||
| Ostrich | £3,750 | |||
| 2015 | £10,000 | [7] | ||
| Elizabeth is Missing | £5,000 | |||
| Eat My Heart Out | £5,000 | |||
| Chop Chop | £5,000 | |||
| 2016 | Glass | £10,000 | [8] | |
| Butterfly Fish | £5,000 | |||
| £5,000 | ||||
| Wood for Weathering | £5,000 | |||
| 2017 | Fallow | £10,000 | ||
| Harmless Like You | £3,000 | |||
| Born on a Tuesday | £3,000 | |||
| Speak Its Name | £3,000 | |||
| £3,000 | ||||
| Five Rivers Met on a Wooded Plain | £3,000 | |||
| 2018 | £10,000 | |||
| Mussolini's Island | £3,250 | |||
| All the Good Things | £3,250 | |||
| Strange Heart Beating | £3,250 | |||
| Bad Ideas/Chemicals | £3,250 | |||
| £3,250 | ||||
| 2019 | £10,000 | |||
| £2,700 | ||||
| £2,700 | ||||
| £2,700 | ||||
| Paul | £2,700 | |||
| Sweet Fruit, Sour Land | £2,700 | |||
| £2,700 |
| 2020 | Hitch | £10,000 | [9] | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| £5,400 | ||||
| £5,400 | ||||
| £5,400 | ||||
| 2021 | ||||
| Bad Love | ||||
| 2022 | IN: The Graphic Novel | [10] | ||
| Assembly | ||||
| Open Water | ||||
| Acts of Desperation | ||||
| 2023 | Mercia’s Take | £10,000 | [11] | |
| My Name is Yip | ||||
| Imogen Crimp | A Very Nice Girl | |||
| Maddie Mortimer | Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies |