Costa Book Awards 2004: Complete list of winners
The 2004 Costa Book Awards celebrated a striking range of British and Commonwealth literature, from intimate historical biography to contemporary fiction that grappled with identity and belonging. Andrea Levy’s Small Island claimed the Novel award, a sweeping postcolonial narrative that would go on to become a modern classic, while Susan Fletcher’s debut Eve Green impressed judges in the First Novel category with its intricate storytelling. The awards also honored the quieter power of poetry through Michael Symmons Roberts’s Corpus, alongside John Guy’s meticulously researched My Heart Is My Own, a definitive biography of Mary Queen of Scots that brought fresh perspective to the Scottish monarch’s contested legacy.
What made this year’s Costa Book Awards particularly memorable was the breadth of achievement across categories—the winners demonstrated that literary merit thrived across all forms, from children’s literature to historical non-fiction. Geraldine McCaughrean’s Not the End of the World, which reimagines the biblical flood narrative through multiple voices, proved that books for young readers could be just as ambitious and intellectually rich as their adult counterparts. Together, these five winners painted a portrait of 2004 as a year when British and Commonwealth authors were writing with remarkable ambition, whether excavating historical truth or pushing the boundaries of contemporary storytelling.
Below you’ll find the complete details of each category winner and what made their work stand out to the Costa Book Awards judges.
Biography
Children’s Book
Not the End of the World by Geraldine McCaughrean
First Novel
Eve Green by Susan Fletcher
Novel
Small Island by Andrea Levy
Poetry
Corpus by Michael Symmons Roberts