Costa Book Awards 1970s: A decade of winners

The 1970s was a transformative period for British and Irish literature, and the Costa Book Awards—then establishing itself as one of the nation’s most prestigious literary honors—captured something essential about the era’s creative restlessness. This was a decade when established literary giants like Iris Murdoch could win recognition alongside daring newcomers, when biography swung from chronicling statesmen to exploring the intimate lives of women, and when children’s literature became an arena for genuine artistic innovation. The award’s expanding categories reflected a broadening vision of what mattered in books, moving beyond the traditional novel-and-biography axis to celebrate illustrated works like Alan Aldridge and William Plomer’s whimsical The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper’s Feast and the sprightly adventures Russell Hoban created with Quentin Blake’s illustrations.

What strikes about this decade is the sheer range of voices and approaches that found recognition. Shiva Naipaul’s The Chip-Chip Gatherers brought attention to postcolonial narratives at a moment when such perspectives were still finding their footing in mainstream awards. Geoffrey Hill’s Mercian Hymns suggested that experimental poetry could be both intellectually rigorous and award-worthy. Meanwhile, biographers like Claire Tomalin—who made her remarkable debut as a novelist with The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft—were rewriting the rules of biographical prose, infusing it with narrative drive and feminist consciousness. This wasn’t merely a decade of award-giving; it was evidence of literature itself in flux, searching for new forms and new subjects to illuminate.

Below, you’ll find the complete list of Costa Book Awards winners spanning the 1970s, a decade that proved the award’s commitment to recognizing both excellence and diversity across the literary landscape.