Writer born in Ukraine wins 2026 Gordon Burn Prize
Winner revealed at Northern Stage
A longlist became a shortlist and finally a single, sparkling work of fiction… Maria Reva’s Endling, which on Thursday night was announced as the winner of the Gordon Burn Prize 2026.
The £10,000 prize, founded in 2012 by New Writing North, Faber and the Gordon Burn Trust, recognises exceptional writing with an unconventional perspective, style or subject matter.
It is open to writers of any nationality for work written in English and published in the UK the previous year.
Maria Reva was born in Ukraine and lived in the city of Kherson until the age of seven when her family emigrated to Canada, settling in Vancouver.
Her first published work was a collection of linked short stories called Good Citizens Need Not Fear, set in a Ukrainian apartment block in the 1980s.
The story told in Endling, her first novel (published in this country by Virago), begins in Ukraine in 2022, the year of the Russian invasion.
Its main character is Yeva, a maverick scientist who travels around in a campervan, searching forests and valleys for endangered snails while her family urges her to settle down.
What relatives don’t realise is that Yeva dates men to fund her work, entertaining Westerners who come to Ukraine sold on the idea that they’ll find compliant brides untainted by feminism.
It’s via the marriage agency that Yeva meets sisters Nastia and Solomiya who want to draw people’s attention to the bridal industry’s patriarchal assumptions, inspired by their mother, founder of a group of feminist activists.
They devise a plan – to kidnap some foreign bachelors and hold them hostage in Yeva’s campervan.
What follows is a journey across a country on the brink of war by three angry women, some kidnapped men and Lefty, a snail which is also an ‘endling’, the last of its kind.
But there’s a dramatic hiatus in the telling of the tale which will take readers by surprise.
Maria Reva – banned, incidentally, by the Russian Foreign Ministry from entering the country – becomes the 13th winner of the award and said she was deeply honoured.
She explained: “Endling doesn’t have a traditional ending because it’s about a war that hasn’t ended.
“My grandfather remains in his besieged city of Kherson, Ukraine. A few weeks ago, Russian artillery projectiles landed in the courtyard of his apartment block, blew out his windows. He was sitting at his writing desk. Somehow he was spared.
“Endling is about many things but at its core it reckons with the place of fiction in today’s world.
“I believe that fiction is aching to find a new container and a prize like this one supports – celebrates – that mad search.”
Bestselling crime writer Val McDermid, chair of the judges, said an astonishing range of books, fiction and non-fiction, had been entered for the 2026 prize.
In the end, she said, the winning entry was one she believed Gordon Burn himself would have enjoyed.
The prize was founded in memory of the Newcastle-born writer by New Writing North, Faber and the Gordon Burn Trust.
Rebecca Wilkie, New Writing North senior programme manager, said the six shortlisted books had all deserved their place but the winner perfectly embodied the values of the prize.
“It is experimental, bold and speaks directly to the uncertain times we are living in.
“Coming four years after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, this novel challenges us to think differently about the world, conflict and the power of the novel.
“I hope winning this award introduces Maria Reva’s Endling to a host of new readers.”
The Gordon Burn Prize is supported by Newcastle University and the Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts (NCLA).
Prof Jo Cox, Newcastle University pro vice-chancellor of humanities and social sciences, said: “We would like to extend our heartfelt congratulations to Maria Reva. What a great acknowledgment of her work and recognition of her bold and exciting literary style.”
The other shortlisted works were: One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad (Canongate); Helm by Sarah Hall (Faber); Thank you for Calling the Lesbian Line by Elizabeth Lovatt (John Murray Press); A Room Above a Shop by Anthony Shapland (Granta); and Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty (&Other Stories).
At the special event at Northern Stage, journalist Sarah Shaffi chatted to the shortlisted authors and there was music from singer-songwriter Richard Dawson.