THE Winston Graham Historical Prize - Cornwall’s answer to The Booker, has announced its shortlist for 2026.

The legacy of Poldark novelist Winston Graham, the prize celebrates the best new historical fiction with a powerful sense of place published in the past year. To enter, novels must be set at least 60 years ago in the UK and Ireland.

To create the annual shortlist, readers’ groups across Cornwall are provided with entries via their local libraries and tasked to report back. Their favourites are put to an expert judging panel chaired by Charlotte Hobson, an award-winning writer of historical fiction herself who is based in Cornwall.

Charlotte is joined on this year’s panel by Peggotty Graham, academic and Graham’s daughter-in-law; authors Wyl Menmuir and Patrick Gale; writer and editor Sravya Raju, and book blogger Cathy Johnson. They will have to choose from evocative settings ranging from the 15th-century Tudor court, the 1930s art world, and 1960s rural Ireland.

“It’s really struck me how these subtle and brilliant stories set in the past shed light on the modern world,” said Charlotte. “Sometimes it seems the long view of a historical novel is the best way to make sense of the crazy times we’re living through.”

The prize ceremonies will take place on March 12 at Cornwall Museum and Art Gallery, with Hotel Tresanton in St Mawes generously sponsoring accommodation for visiting authors and judges.

The winners of a new creative writing prize for children aged eight to 16, Winston’s Wordsmiths, will be announced at Waterstones in Truro on the same day.

The shortlisted novels are:

· The Two Roberts by Damien Barr (Canongate). Artists Robert MacBryde and Robert Colquhoun were locked in a lifelong passion for art and each other. Barr charts their course from 1930s Glasgow to Paris, Rome and London, where they mixed with the likes of Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon and Dylan Thomas.

· Helm by Sarah Hall (Faber & Faber). Helm is a ferocious and mischievous wind which has been living alongside humans for time immemorial, symbolising the co-dependency of man and nature. But is human pollution killing Helm, and what can be done to stop it?

· The Pretender by Jo Harkin (Bloomsbury). Inspired by the little known Simnel, a figurehead of the 1487 Yorkist rebellion who ended up working as a spy in the court of King Henry VII, The Pretender is a gripping portrait of an innocent caught up in power struggles for the 15th-century English throne.

· Seascraper by Benjamin Wood. (Penguin Random House). Thomas collects shrimp for a living on the bleak and foggy coast of 1960s northern England. An exotic stranger offers him a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change his back-breaking existence, but where will it take him?

· Time of the Child by Niall Williams (Bloomsbury). Rural Ireland, 1960s. As the town readies itself for Christmas, a baby is left in the care of father and daughter Ronnie and Dr Troy. As the winter passes, the understanding of their family and their role in their community are changed forever.