Brought to book: Literary Britain - the next chapter
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of its first shop, Waterstone's has predicted the next generation of superstars. Jonathan Brown reads between the lines
Published: 17 May 2007
1: JO PRATT
Behind-the-scenes food stylist and writer who has worked alongside Gary Rhodes and Gordon Ramsay. She has built a successful TV career appearing on Daily Cooks and Great Food Live. Her first book, The Nation's Favourite Food, was published in 2003. Her latest, In The Mood for Food, was published in January.
2: NAOMI ALDERMAN
Born into a tight-knit Jewish Orthodox community in north London, Alderman employed her background to acclaimed effect in her debut novel, Disobedience. It was awarded the Orange Prize for New Writers in 2006. In 2007 she was named Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year.
3: ROBYN YOUNG
A former student of the creative writing course at Sussex University, Young embarked on her first major project - Brethren Trilogy, an epic adventure of the Knights Templar set on the eve of the last Crusade - after graduation. The first part proved a hit in the US and the UK last year, while the second, Crusade, is due out this year.
4: GAUTAM MALKANI
His first novel, Londonstani, attracted a £300,000 advance, but expectations did not live up to the critical reception. The journ-alist's bold coming-of-age novel, written in the patois of Asian west London, was one of the most talked about novels of last year.
5: RICHARD MORGAN
Dystopian science fiction writer living in Glasgow, two of Morgan's previous works - Altered Carbon and Market Forces - were optioned by Hollywood studios. He has also written the Black Widow comic book series. His latest sci-fi thriller, Black Man, is out this month.
6: LOUISE WELSH
German-based writer whose debut, The Cutting Room, won The Crime Writers' Association Creasey Dagger. Her second, Tamburlaine Must Die, recounted the final days of the poet Christopher Marlow. Her third, The Bullet Trick, a burlesque thriller, was published in February.
7: JANE HARRIS
Born in Belfast and brought up in Glasgow, Harris taught creative writing at the University of East Anglia before the publication of her first novel, The Observations, in 2006. The comic history of life in Victorian Scotland was one of the most talked about debuts of last year.
8: NICK STONE
Son of the historian Norman Stone and a descendant of one of Haiti's oldest families, Stone was schooled in the UK where he became a successful junior boxer. But it was during a year spent in Haiti in the mid-1990s that he conceived the plot for his noirish thriller, Mr Clarinet, published last year.
9: SIOBHAN DOWD
Heavily influenced by her Irish roots, the London-born Oxford graduate has championed human rights in Latin America. Her first novel, A Swift Pure Cry, published in 2004, was shortlisted for a number of awards including this year's Carnegie Medal for young adult fiction.
10: JASPER FFORDE
Creator of the literary detective Thursday Next, Fforde spent 13 years as an assistant cameraman in the film industry. He received 76 rejection letters before the publication of his first novel in 2001. His latest book - the fifth in the Next series - will be published this summer.
11: JON MCGREGOR
Bermudan-born novelist whose debut, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, made him the youngest contender and the only first-time novelist on a Booker Prize longlist, in 2002. Won a 2003 Somerset Maugham Award.
12: PETER HOBBS
His first novel, The Short Day Dying, features a lay preacher suffering a crisis of faith set in the author's native Cornwall. It was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award in 2005, and won a Betty Trask Award. His short stories, I Could Ride All Day in My Cool Blue Train, published in 2006, are shortlisted for the Impac Award, the world's most lucrative literary prize.
13: STEVEN HALL
Former conceptual artist and short-story writer, the publication of his first novel, The Raw Shark, generated immediate interest from the film industry and even earned plaudits from Nicole Kidman. Described as original and compelling, it tells the story of an amnesiac menaced by a conceptual shark.
14: SUSANNA CLARKE
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, her magical debut take on 19th- century England, was pipped to the Whitbread in 2005. The former cookery book publisher had been longlisted for the Booker the previous year and has published seven short stories and novellas in US anthologies. Her most recent book, The Ladies of Grace Adieu, was published in 2006.
15: DOMINIC SANDBROOK
The Oxford history don's first book, a biography of the American politician Eugene McCarthy, was published in the US in 2004. Never Had it So Good, a look at Britain from Suez to The Beatles, and his third, White Heat, offered a contradictory take on the now dominant idea of the 1960s as a time of widespread cultural revolution in Britain.
16: BEN WILSON
The inspiration for Wilson's first book, The Laughter of Triumph, came while studying political satire during his history degree at Cambridge. He later worked as a researcher and writer for David Starkey's Monarchy series. His latest book, Decency and Disorder, an examination of the morals of the early 19th-century social reformers, was published last month.
17: CHRIS SIMMS
Simms, a freelance copywriter and father of four, conceived the idea for his first novel, Outside the White Lines, while stranded on the hard shoulder of the M40. His latest novel, Savage Moon, published later this year, features a grisly murder on Manchester's notorious Saddleworth Moor.
18: MAGGIE O'FARRELL
Former deputy literary editor of The Independent on Sunday, her debut novel, After You'd Gone, won a Betty Trask Award. Her next two books, My Lover's Lover and The Distance Between Us, were both warmly received by the critics. Her work has been translated into 16 languages and her latest novel is The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox.
19: MARINA LEWYCKA
The Sheffield media studies lecturer's debut, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, proved one of the best-loved novels of last year. Translated into more than 30 languages, it has spent more than a year on the bestseller list. Her second novel, Two Caravans, features more Ukranians and was published this year.
20: CJ SANSOM
Former solicitor and creator of the popular Matthew Shardlake series - the hunchback lawyer who works for Henry VIII's chief minister, Thomas Cromwell and then his Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer. Sanson's latest novel, Winter in Madrid, is set in Spain during the Second World War and is published later this year.
21: JULIA GOLDING
Former Foreign Office diplomat and Poland expert-turned-lobbyist on conflict issues for Oxfam. Her first novel, The Diamond of Drury Lane, was shortlisted for the Costa Children's Book Award and she won both the Nestlé Children's Book Prize and Waterstone's Children's Book Prize.
22: HELEN OYEYEMI
Born in Nigeria and raised in London, Oyeyemi's first novel, The Icarus Girl, was written while she was still at school. The publisher accepted the book on the basis of the first 20 pages and a two-book deal - said to be worth £400,000 - followed. Since graduating from Cambridge University she has taught creative writing at Columbia University in New York. Her second novel, The Opposite House, was published this month.
23: ROBERT MACFARLANE
Youthful fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, whose Mountains of the Mind: A History of a Fascination, won The Guardian First Book Award in 2003 and the Somerset Maugham Award. A Man Booker judge in 2004, he now contributes to a number of publications.
24: EMILY GRAVETT
Children's author who brought up her first child on a bus, the former traveller turned to writing children's books after enrolling on an art course at Brighton University. Her first book, Wolves, won the Cilip Kate Greenaway Medal while her latest, Monkey and Me, was published last month.
25: CHARLOTTE MENDELSON
Jewish lesbian writer whose breakthrough came when her first story, Blood Sugar, was broadcast on Radio Four. Her second novel, Daughters of Jerusalem, won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and the Somerset Maughan Award. Her latest book, When We Were Bad, was published this month.
