I’m delighted to see that the long list for the RSL Ondaatje Prize, announced today, includes two of my favourite books from 2018, both of them impressive debuts: Kings of the Yukon by Adam Weymouth and The Crossway by Guy Stagg. The short list will be announced at the “Spirit of a Place” event at the British Library in London on April 16; the winner will be named on May 13. Meanwhile, I’m looking forward to reading more from what looks like a fascinating long list.

  The 20 books long-listed are:

No Turning Back by Rania Abouzeid (Oneworld)
Perfidious Albion by Sam Byers (Faber & Faber)
Little by Edward Carey (Aardvark Bureau)
Middle England by Jonathan Coe (Viking)
The Wife’s Tale by Aida Edemariam (4th Estate)
Happiness by Aminatta Forna (Bloomsbury)
Where the road runs out by Gaia Holmes (Comma Poetry)
The Café de Move-on Blues by Christopher Hope (Atlantic Books)
A Stranger’s Pose by Emmanuel Iduma (Cassava Republic)
Mary Ann Sate, Imbecile by Alice Jolly (Unbound)
Arkady by Patrick Langley (Fitzcarraldo Editions)
A Line in the River by Jamal Mahjoub (Bloomsbury)
Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss (Granta)
Let Me Be Like Water by SK Perry (Melville House UK)
From a Low and Quiet Sea by Donal Ryan (Doubleday)
The Dictionary of Animal Languages by Heidi Sopinka (Scribe UK)
The Crossway by Guy Stagg (Picador)
The Valley at the Centre of the World by Malachy Tallack (Canongate)
Wilding by Isabella Tree (Picador)
Kings of the Yukon by Adam Weymouth (Particular Books).