Going for a gong: the week in literary prizes – roundup

We toast the winners of the Goldsmiths prize, the National Book awards, the Warwick prize for women in translation and the Stephen Spender for poetry

There were gongs galore this week. First to figuratively spray champagne from a podium was Nicola Barker for her formally tricksy novel H(a)ppy, promoted by its publisher William Heinemann as “a post-post-apocalyptic Alice in Wonderland”. It saw off shortlisted works by Jon McGregor and Will Self to take the £10,000 Goldsmiths prize for fiction that “embodies the spirit of invention”. Barker is the third female winner of a five-year-old award that has previously been given to Eimear McBride and Ali Smith (who both then went on to win the Baileys prize).

Also on Wednesday evening, but five hours later in New York City, Cynthia Nixon hosted the National Book awards, a multi-genre jamboree resembling Britain’s Costa awards in both its lineup of categories and its ban on foreign entrants. A month after Jesmyn Ward made the squad for 2017’s MacArthur “genius” awards (worth £475,000 over five years), the African American author’s Mississippi-set family saga Sing, Unburied, Sing won the fiction prize. Acclaimed by Margaret Atwood and just published in the UK, it will clearly be a strong contender for both the Women’s prize for fiction and the Man Booker prize in 2018.