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Aravind Jayan’s novel shortlisted for the 2023 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for comic fiction

‘...A startlingly simple, pithy and hilarious voice,’ said the judges about Jayan’s novel ‘Teen Couple Have Fun Outdoors’.

The Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize announced its shortlist of six titles in contention for this year’s award. Named in honour of PG Wodehouse, the award is the UK’s oldest prize for comic fiction.

Indian author Aravind Jayan is shortlisted for his debut novel, Teen Couple Have Fun Outdoors, in which a clip of the eponymous protagonists engaging in “sex-adjacent” activities goes viral. The novel is “set in a refreshingly specific modern Indian context and relayed in a startlingly simple, pithy and hilarious voice,” said judge and comedian Sindhu Vee.

Another debut novel on the list is Bob Mortimer’s The Satsuma Complex. It follows a man’s attempt to track down a girl he once went on a date with who suddenly disappeared. James Hannaham is shortlisted for Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta, about a transgender woman who re-enters life on the outside after more than 20 years of incarceration. Mother Hens by Sophie McCartney, is a black comedy that takes readers on a hen do in Ibiza. Darling by India Knight is a contemporary retelling of Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love. In Fergus Craig’s Murder at Crime Manor, Detective Roger LeCarre has to solve a murder which is well and fine except that the murder weapon was discovered in the detective’s hand, and the body was at his feet.