The awards recognise the finest new writing talent who have had work published in English in the last year. The longlist will be now be reduced to a shortlist by a judging panel that includes author and screenwriter David Nicholls. The winning author will be given a £10,000 prize plus an advertising package in the Guardian and the Observer for an author's first book published in 2011.
Commenting on the longlist Lisa Allardice, awards chair and editor of the Review, Guardian, said: "First novels are often accused of being overly autobiographical, but several of this year's entries are audacious takes on topical subjects such as Amy Waldman's The Submission, set in the aftermath of 9/11 in New York, or Stephen Kelman's Pigeon English, about gang warfare in a South London estate."
"The non-fiction titles are equally strong and wide-ranging, including a memoir of a young writer's love affair with Russian literature, to a magisterial 'biography' of cancer, to a polemical anatomy of British class hatred. And not forgetting Rachel Boast's truly luminous collection of poetry, Sidereal."
"For the first time we opened up the judging process, inviting readers to nominate a title for the final place on the longlist: Down the Rabbit Hole by Juan Pablo Villalobos takes us deep into the world of Mexican drug lord and is a lively addition to an extremely exciting longlist."
The full longlist is:
Non-Fiction
The Possessed by Elif Batuman, Granta
Chavs by Owen Jones, Verso
Emperor of Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee, Fourth Estate
Fiction
Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman, Bloomsbury
The Submission by Amy Waldman, Heinemann
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, Harvill
The Book of Lies by Mary Horlock, Canongate
The Collaborator by Mirza Waheed, Penguin
Down the Rabbit Hole by Juan Pablo Villalobos, And Other Stories
Poetry
Sideral by Rachel Boast, Picador
For further information on the awards visit: guardian.co.uk/firstbookaward.
On this year's judging panel are: David Nicholls; Lady Antonia Fraser-Pinter, author; Sarah Churchwell, author and academic; Stuart Broom, literary events co-ordinator, Waterstones; Katharine Viner, deputy editor, Guardian; and Lisa Allardice.
A series of regional reading groups, run in partnership with Waterstones bookstores, will assist the judges in drawing up the shortlist. These reading groups are based in Bath, London, Edinburgh, Nottingham and York.
