Congratulations to Lucy Ellmann who has won this year’s Goldsmiths Prize for her incredible novel, Ducks, Newburyport!

n just eight sentences, an Ohio mother ruminates on the troubles and triumphs of her past and present. By turns strange and complex, transcendent and mundane, Ducks, Newburyport is a dazzlingly ambitious literary event that casts a searing gaze over contemporary culture and faces the brutality of our lives with a call for kindness.

Erica Wagner, Chair of the Judges, says: ‘ Ducks, Newburyport is that rare thing: a book which, not long after its publication, one can unhesitatingly call a masterpiece. In her gripping and hypnotic book, Ellmann remakes the novel and expands the reader’s idea of what is possible with the form.’

Established in 2013, The Goldsmiths Prize celebrates the qualities of creative daring and to reward fiction that breaks the mould or extends the possibilities of the novel form. Previous winners include

As the 2019 winner, Ellmann receives £10,000 in prize money.

Find out more about the Goldsmiths Prize here.