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The Observer's debut novelists of 2026
Invited experts
Tom Gatti
Literary Editor
Sufiyaan Salam
Stephanie Sy Quia
Sam Beckbessinger
Rebecca Perry
Lucy Apps
Liz Allan
Jon Doyle
Jem Calder
Tom Gatti
Literary Editor
Stephanie Sy Quia
Rebecca Perry
Liz Allan
Jem Calder
Sufiyaan Salam
Sam Beckbessinger
Lucy Apps
Jon Doyle
The Observer’s annual debut novelists list is your essential guide to the literary world’s rising stars. Over more than a decade, it has identified blazing talents such as Sally Rooney and Douglas Stuart at the very beginning of their careers - shaping reading habits, setting literary trends, and launching remarkable new voices.
This year, after reading nearly 90 first novels, The Observer’s editors and critics have come up with their squad of the eight most inventive and distinctive new voices in fiction. They include: a poet tracing their grandparents’ footsteps from Staffordshire to Libya; a GP writing about a teenage girl with learning difficulties; a schoolteacher reliving their wayward, Kurt Cobain-idolising youth in Australia in the 90s; a science graduate who switched from zoology to fiction.
Join us in The Observer newsroom for an exclusive evening with these eight unmissable authors - a celebration for subscribers, readers, and the literary world’s most curious minds. Meet the new names shaping fiction’s future and discover the stories behind their extraordinary debuts.
Invited experts
Tom Gatti
Literary Editor
Sufiyaan Salam
Stephanie Sy Quia
Sam Beckbessinger
Rebecca Perry
Lucy Apps
Liz Allan
Jon Doyle
Jem Calder
Tom Gatti
Literary Editor
Stephanie Sy Quia
Rebecca Perry
Liz Allan
Jem Calder
Sufiyaan Salam
Sam Beckbessinger
Lucy Apps
Jon Doyle
The Observer’s annual debut novelists list is your essential guide to the literary world’s rising stars. Over more than a decade, it has identified blazing talents such as Sally Rooney and Douglas Stuart at the very beginning of their careers - shaping reading habits, setting literary trends, and launching remarkable new voices.
This year, after reading nearly 90 first novels, The Observer’s editors and critics have come up with their squad of the eight most inventive and distinctive new voices in fiction. They include: a poet tracing their grandparents’ footsteps from Staffordshire to Libya; a GP writing about a teenage girl with learning difficulties; a schoolteacher reliving their wayward, Kurt Cobain-idolising youth in Australia in the 90s; a science graduate who switched from zoology to fiction.
Join us in The Observer newsroom for an exclusive evening with these eight unmissable authors - a celebration for subscribers, readers, and the literary world’s most curious minds. Meet the new names shaping fiction’s future and discover the stories behind their extraordinary debuts.