Fitzcarraldo Editions, Giramondo Publishing and New Directions have announced that Giada Scodellaro is the winner of the 2024 Novel Prize for her debut novel Ruins, Child.
The biennial prize is awarded for a book-length work of literary fiction written in English. It offers $10,000 (£7,950) to the winner as well as simultaneous publication in North America by New York-based New Directions, Fitzcarraldo Editions in the UK and Ireland and in Australia and New Zealand by the Sydney-based publisher Giramondo.
Selected from 1,100 submissions, Scodellaro’s novel will be published in early 2026. “Set in what may be the future, and centred on six women sharing a space in some sort of crumbling apartment tower, Ruins, Child is remarkable for its irresistible sweep, wit and prickly splintered truth,” the synopsis says. “A surreal musing, Ruins, Child uses the lens of urban infrastructure, social commentary, folklore, choreography and collective listening to create an ethnography of place and an ode to communal ruins.”
Scodellaro said: “I am so humbled, so thrilled, so in awe of this outcome. What a dream it is for this work to exist outside of myself. A collaboration with the extraordinary New Directions, Fitzcarraldo and Giramondo affords Ruins, Child an urgent and expansive opportunity – a life.”
Jessica Au’s Cold Enough for Snow (Fitzcarraldo Editions) was the inaugural winner in 2020 and the second iteration of the prize was shared by Jonathan Buckley for Tell (Fitzcarraldo Editions) and Anne de Marcken for It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over (Fitzcarraldo Editions).
