Natasha Brown (author)

Natasha Brown
Brown at the 2023 Étonnants Voyageurs
Brown at the 2023 Étonnants Voyageurs
OccupationNovelist
LanguageEnglish
NationalityBritish
Alma materUniversity of Cambridge
Notable worksAssembly (2021)
Notable awardsFoyles BotY—Fiction (2021)
Betty Trask Award (2022)
Granta Best of Young British Novelists (2023)
Website
npbrown.com

Natasha Brown is a British writer who lives in London, England.[1] Assembly (2021), her first novel, won a Betty Trask Award, was Foyles Book of the Year (for Fiction), and was shortlisted for several other American, British, and English-language awards.[2] In 2023, she was included on the Granta Best of Young British Novelists list.

Career

Brown spent a decade working in financial services, after studying mathematics at the University of Cambridge.[3]

In 2023, Brown was named on Granta's Best of Young British Novelists list, compiled every 10 years since 1983, identifying the 20 most significant British novelists aged under 40.[4] The judging panel comprised Tash Aw, Rachel Cusk, Brian Dillon and Helen Oyeyemi, chaired by Granta editor Sigrid Rausing.[5]

Assembly

Brown developed Assembly after receiving a 2019 London Writers Award in the literary fiction category.[2] It was published in hardcover format in the UK through Hamish Hamilton on 3 June 2021; Penguin also released an ebook and audiobook dictated by Pippa Bennett-Warner.[6][7] Later she released it via Little, Brown and Company in the US on 14 September 2021, along with an ebook.[8]

The novel received acclaim from several publications.[9][10][11] Its economy of language is frequently mentioned as one of its strengths, with Brown's tight prose often being described as "precise" and "crisp."[12][13][14][15][16][17]

Literary Hub's Emily Temple compiled a comprehensive assessment of critic attitudes towards literature from 2021 calling it an "Ultimate Best Books of 2021 List"; she determined that altogether four mainstream magazines and outlets explicitly named the novel as a critical or important work on their own platforms' end-of-the-year lists.[18] These consisted of The Guardian's Top Fiction of 2021,[19] Publisher Weekly's Top 10 Books of 2021,[20] The Washington Post's 50 Notable Works of Fiction of 2021[21] and The Philadelphia Inquirer's Best Books of 2021.[22] It also made an appearance on The Atlantic's 20 Best Books of 2021.[23]

It was shortlisted for the Books Are My Bag Readers' Award, Goldsmiths Prize, Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, British Book Award for debut book, Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, and The Writers' Prize; it also won a Betty Trask Award.[24][25][26][27][28][2]

Other works

Brown's second novel, Universality, was published by Faber & Faber on 13 March 2025.[29][30] Reviewing the novel in The Guardian, Jo Hamya wrote: "Brown is one of our most intelligent voices writing today, able to block out the short-term chatter around both identity and language in order to excavate much more uncomfortable truths."[31] Alex Clark's review described the novel as "terrific", going on to say: "Brown is a talented satirist, for sure, and her commitment to contemporary detail is impressive."[32]

On 29 July 2025, Universality was announced as one of 13 titles on the longlist of the Booker Prize.[33][34]

Awards

Year Work Award Category Result Ref.
2019 — London Writers Award — Won [35]
2021 Assembly Books Are My Bag Readers' Award Fiction Shortlisted [24]
Foyles Books of the Year Fiction Won
Goldsmiths Prize — Shortlisted [25]
Los Angeles Times Book Prize First Fiction Shortlisted [26]
2022 Betty Trask Prize and Awards Betty Trask Award Won [2]
British Book Award Début Book of the Year Shortlisted [27]
Desmond Elliott Prize — Longlisted [36]
Orwell Prize Political Fiction Shortlisted [28]
The Writers' Prize — Shortlisted
2025 Universality Booker Prize — Pending
Orwell Prize Political Fiction Shortlisted

Selected publications

  • —— (2021). Assembly (hardcover 1st ed.). London: Hamish Hamilton. ISBN 9780241515709.
  • —— (2025). Universality (hardcover 1st ed.). London: Faber & Faber. ISBN 9780571389018.

References

  1. ^ "Natasha Brown". Granta. 25 October 2023. Retrieved 18 September 2024.
  2. ^ a b c d Reed, Martin (1 June 2022). "Graphic novel wins at the 2022 Society of Authors' Awards". Society of Authors. Retrieved 18 September 2024.
  3. ^ Robson, Leo (10 November 2021). "Natasha Brown: 'It's important to celebrate difficult novels'". New Statesman. Retrieved 20 September 2024.
  4. ^ Razzall, Katie (13 April 2023). "Granta: Eleanor Catton and Saba Sams make Best of Young British Novelists list". BBC News. Archived from the original on 14 April 2023. Retrieved 30 July 2025.
  5. ^ "Meet the next generation of British writers | Introducing Granta's Best of Young British Novelists". 2023. Retrieved 30 July 2025.
  6. ^ Brown, Natasha (3 June 2021). Assembly (ebook ed.). London: Penguin Books. ISBN 9780241992678.
  7. ^ Brown, Natasha (3 June 2021). Assembly (audiobook ed.). London: Penguin Books. ISBN 9780241993347.
  8. ^ Brown, Natasha (14 September 2021). Assembly (ebook US ed.). Little, Brown. ISBN 9780316268462.
  9. ^ "Assembly". Kirkus Reviews. 17 August 2021. Retrieved 19 September 2024.
  10. ^ Hoffert, Barbara (3 December 2021). "Assembly". Library Journal. Retrieved 20 September 2024.
  11. ^ "Shelf Awareness for Readers for Friday, September 17, 2021". Shelf Awareness. Retrieved 20 September 2024.
  12. ^ "Briefly Noted". The New Yorker. 4 October 2021. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 20 September 2024.
  13. ^ Gyarkye, Lovia (13 September 2021). "A Black Woman in Finance Regains Her Agency". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 September 2024.
  14. ^ "Lit Hub's Most Anticipated Books of 2021, Part Two". Literary Hub. 6 July 2021. Retrieved 20 September 2024.
  15. ^ Biggs, Joanna (15 July 2021). "Pure, Fucking Profit". London Review of Books. Vol. 43, no. 14. ISSN 0260-9592. Retrieved 20 September 2024.
  16. ^ Williams, Holly (31 May 2021). "Assembly by Natasha Brown review – the grind of everyday prejudice". The Guardian. ISSN 0029-7712. Retrieved 20 September 2024.
  17. ^ Garber, Megan (8 October 2021). "The Great Novel of the Internet Was Published in 1925". The Atlantic. Retrieved 20 September 2024.
  18. ^ Temple, Emily (27 December 2021). "The Ultimate Best Books of 2021 List". Literary Hub. Retrieved 20 September 2024.
  19. ^ Jordan, Justine (4 December 2021). "Best fiction of 2021". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 20 September 2024.
  20. ^ "Best Books 2021: Publishers Weekly Publishers Weekly". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved 20 September 2024.
  21. ^ "50 Notable Works of Fiction of 2021". The Washington Post. 18 November 2021. Retrieved 20 September 2024.
  22. ^ Rapa, Patrick (4 December 2021). "The best books of 2021, to gift or read yourself". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved 20 September 2024.
  23. ^ "The 20 Best Books of 2021". The Atlantic. 22 December 2021. Retrieved 20 September 2024.
  24. ^ a b "Books Are My Bag Readers Awards 2021 shortlist". Booksellers Association. 7 October 2021. Retrieved 19 September 2024.
  25. ^ a b "2021 Prize". Goldsmiths, University of London. Retrieved 20 September 2024.
  26. ^ a b "History » Book Prizes » Festival of Books". Festival of Books. Retrieved 19 September 2024.
  27. ^ a b Waite-Taylor, Eva (25 March 2022). "British Book Awards 2022 shortlist is in, and these are the novels to read next". The Independent. Retrieved 18 September 2024.
  28. ^ a b "The Orwell Prizes 2022: The Finalists | The Orwell Foundation". www.orwellfoundation.com. Retrieved 20 September 2024.
  29. ^ Bayley, Sian (5 March 2024). "Faber wins six-way auction for Natasha Brown's second novel Universality". The Bookseller. Retrieved 18 September 2024.
  30. ^ Whiteley, Imogen (5 March 2024). "Faber to publish Natasha Brown's new novel, Universality". Faber. Retrieved 18 September 2024.
  31. ^ "Universality by Natasha Brown review – clever satire of identity politics". The Guardian. 13 March 2025. Retrieved 30 July 2025.
  32. ^ Clark, Alex (23 March 2025). "Review:Universality by Natasha Brown review – a fabulous fable about the politics of storytelling". The Observer. Retrieved 30 July 2025.
  33. ^ Creamer, Ella (30 July 2025). "Most global Booker prize longlist in a decade features Kiran Desai and Tash Aw". The Guardian. Retrieved 30 July 2025.
  34. ^ "Everything you need to know about the Booker Prize 2025 longlist". The Booker Prizes. 30 July 2025. Retrieved 30 July 2025.
  35. ^ "London Writers Awards Cohort 2 – 2019 – Spread the Word". Spread the Word. Retrieved 20 September 2024.
  36. ^ "Introducing the Desmond Elliott Prize longlist 2022". National Centre for Writing | NCW. Retrieved 20 September 2024.
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