China Miéville wins the Goldsmiths Prize for a 1,264-page epic twenty years in the making
The British novelist took the £10,000 prize for The Rouse, now the longest book to win since the award began in 2013.
China Miéville has won the 2026 Goldsmiths Prize for his novel The Rouse, according to Literary Hub and The Guardian. The prize, worth £10,000, was announced at a ceremony in London on Wednesday.
The Rouse runs to 1,264 pages and took Miéville two decades to write, The Guardian reports. The paper describes it as part paranormal thriller, part historical saga, moving through decades of British imperial and Cold War history. Its length makes it the longest novel to win the Goldsmiths Prize since the award was launched in 2013, per The Guardian.
Judges praised the book as "exuberant, overflowing," according to The Guardian's report on the ceremony.
The Goldsmiths Prize was created to reward fiction that, in its own stated terms cited by Literary Hub, "breaks the mould or extends the possibilities of the novel form." Past winners cited by Literary Hub include Ali Smith.
Sources
This article was written from these reports.