C.D. Rose Wins 2025 Goldsmiths Prize for We Live Here Now
In a ceremony held in London on Wednesday evening, Manchester‑born author C.D. Rose was awarded the £10,000 Goldsmiths Prize for his novel We Live Here Now, which judges described as “hilarious and deeply haunting”.
Now in its 13th year, the Goldsmiths Prize celebrates fiction that “breaks the mould or extends the possibilities of the novel form”.
About the Winner & the Book
Rose, who lives in Hebden Bridge and has previously published four books, receives the prize for a novel that marks his first nomination for the award.
We Live Here Now is composed of a series of interconnected short stories that explore the aftermath of the disappearance of visitors to an art installation. The structure and subject matter drew praise for its ambition.
Chair of the judging panel, Amy Sackville, called the novel “a book about what art is and what it does (or doesn’t do)”. inkl+1 Fellow judge Simon Okotie described it as “a dizzying, encyclopaedic series of stories linked by texture, resonance and suggestion… the invisible circuits and networks, of love, capital and war, that shape our contemporary lived experience”.
The novel was selected from a shortlist of six, including:
Colwill Brown for We Pretty Pieces of Flesh
Yrsa Daley‑Ward for The Catch
Sarah Hall for Helm
Ben Pester for The Expansion Project
Charlie Porter for Nova Scotia House. Goldsmiths, University of London+1
Looking Ahead
With this win, Rose joins the ranks of previous Goldsmiths Prize recipients such as Rachel Cusk (2024). The award underlines a growing appreciation for fiction that challenges conventional form and content.
For readers and booksellers, We Live Here Now now stands out as a notable work from 2025 that engages with the boundaries of the novel. If you’d like, I can pull up interview extracts with Rose or reviews of the book for a deeper look.