Congratulations to M John Harrison who has won this year’s Goldsmiths Prize for his masterful work of speculative fiction, The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again.

This novel follows Shaw, a man in his 50s who is attempting to get his life back together following a breakdown. He’s engaged in an on-and-off love affair with Victoria, who’s moved to the midlands to renovate her dead mother’s house. When strange rumours and impossible events begin occurring, both Shaw and Victoria become tangled up in them. The sunken lands are rising up again…

Judge Will Eaves says: ‘ The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again is a brilliant realist fantasy about love in middle age and the dissolution of the postwar settlement. In a series of startling knights’ moves across our inner and outer landscapes, M John Harrison quietly overturns all grounds for supposing we know who we are and where we have come from.’

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 Eimear McBride, Ali Smith, Nicola Barker, Lucy Ellmann, and more.

As the 2020 winner, Harrison receives £10,000 in prize money.

Find out more about the Goldsmiths Prize here.