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Richard Ayoade, Guy Jenkin, Sandi Toksvig and Nussaibah Younis are among eight authors in the running to have a pig named after their novel in this year’s Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse prize for comic fiction.
The award aims to highlight the funniest novel of the past 12 months, one which best evokes the witty spirit of the English writer PG Wodehouse. This year’s shortlist features a “delightful mix of comedies” from “darkest satire and period farce to lightest humour,” said the chair of the judges and Hay festival co-founder Peter Florence.
Shortlisted for The Unfinished Harauld Hughes, Ayoade’s debut is narrated by his alter ego, who wants to save his doppelganger, the playwright Harauld Hughes, from obscurity. “A pitch-perfect literary parody, packed with deft wordplay and lines that made me laugh aloud on almost every page. Ayoade has an instinctive ear for the comic possibilities of language,” said literary critic and judge Stephanie Merritt.
Younis made the shortlist for her debut novel Fundamentally, which was also shortlisted for this year’s Women’s prize for fiction. It follows a heartbroken academic, Nadia, who accepts a UN job offer in Iraq where she is tasked with rehabilitating Islamic State women. There she forms a friendship with a feisty east Londoner, who joined Islamic State at just 15.
Friendship is also a theme of Rosanna Pike’s novel A Little Trickerie, in which vagabond Tibb Ingleby travels through medieval England and with new-found friends conjures a hoax.
The winner of this year’s prize will be announced at a reception in London on 1 December and, as well as having a pig named after their winning book, they will be awarded a complete set of the Everyman’s Library PG Wodehouse collection and Bollinger champagne.
To mark the 25th anniversary of the award, this year’s ceremony will also feature the announcement of the Vintage Bollinger prize, a winner-of-winners to be selected from the previous 25 recipients. The prize will be judged by presenter Claudia Winkleman, comedians Sindhu Vee and Tatty Macleod, Great British Sewing Bee judge Patrick Grant and Florence.
Another title shortlisted for the regular award, The Persians by Sanam Mahloudji, is about a family in crisis: Elizabeth lives with her Islamic law-breaking granddaughter in Tehran, while her daughters are disillusioned by life in America. “I found myself lost in this beautifully written novel and laughing as much as I wept,” said comedian Pippa Evans, another judge on the panel. “Multi-generational stories are rich in hilarious moments as we watch generations clash with the ideas that came before.”
Also set in America is Alexander Sammartino’s book Last Acts. David Rizzo, the owner of a failing firearms store, uses his son’s near fatal overdose to create a TV advert.
Joining Florence, Merritt and Evans on this year’s judging panel is vice-chair of the University of Wales and chair of Rewilding Britain Justin Albert and Everyman’s Library publisher David Campbell.
Outnumbered co-writer Guy Jenkin is shortlisted for Murder Most Foul, set in 1593, which follows the relationship between Christopher Marlowe and Shakespeare, and the rumours that swirl after Marlowe’s death about the Bard’s culpability. The novel is “a brilliantly subversive romp – razor-sharp, darkly funny, and utterly Wodehousian in its wit and mischief”, said Albert.
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Toksvig made the list for Friends of Dorothy, following a young couple who buy their first house before discovering that the previous owner, 80-year-old Dorothy, does not plan to leave.
Completing the list is Kate Greathead with The Book of George, a comic tale of a forgetful, hapless man named George and his long-suffering girlfriend.
Previous winners include bestselling novelists Percival Everett, Bob Mortimer and Helen Fielding. Last year’s winner was Ferdia Lennon for his debut novel Glorious Exploits.
The shortlist was chosen from a record 107 submissions, published between 1 June 2024 and 31 May 2025.
