CD Rose wins the Goldsmiths Prize 2025 for We Live Here Now
CD Rose's We Live Here Now, a novel built from linked stories and published by Melville House, won the £10,000 Goldsmiths Prize.
CD Rose won the 2025 Goldsmiths Prize for We Live Here Now, published by Melville House, announced on 5 November 2025 at Foyles in London. The £10,000 prize, run by Goldsmiths, University of London, rewards fiction that breaks the mould or extends the possibilities of the novel form.
The book is built from a series of linked pieces centred on people connected to a conceptual artist's installation, and traces the unseen networks of love, money and war that shape contemporary life. Rose was born in Manchester and lives in Hebden Bridge. He has published four previous books, and this was his first appearance on the prize's shortlist.
The judges were chaired by the novelist Amy Sackville, with Mark Haddon, Megan Nolan and Simon Okotie. The other shortlisted books were We Pretty Pieces of Flesh by Colwill Brown, The Catch by Yrsa Daley-Ward, Helm by Sarah Hall, The Expansion Project by Ben Pester and Nova Scotia House by Charlie Porter.
A novel made of connected stories sits awkwardly in bookshop categories, and that awkwardness can make such books harder to place with publishers. A prize that rewards the form, and an independent publisher willing to take it on, are both worth noting by writers whose work does not fit neatly on one shelf.
Sources: Goldsmiths, University of London: C.D. Rose's We Live Here Now wins the 2025 Goldsmiths Prize; Literary Hub: C.D. Rose has won the 2025 Goldsmiths Prize.