Zadie Smith. Credit:Bill O'Leary/Washington Post "There's a precision and power to her sentences that feels like the work of a much older writer," said John Freeman, the editor of Granta. "Her new book reminds me of Peter Carey: the language becomes part of the landscape and you don't feel an authorial self pressing down on the novel, but a deep authorial intelligence behind it." Probably best-known to Australian readers is Zadie Smith, 38, who was also among the 2003 Best of Young British Novelists after her first novel, White Teeth, appeared. She was born in London to a Jamaican mother, and is almost a literary veteran with three more critically acclaimed novels and other books to her name. "Zadie has been so good for so long; she came into the world full made," Freeman said. Also included are Naomi Alderman, Tahmima Anam, Ned Beauman, Jenni Fagan, Adam Foulds, Xiaolu Guo, Sarah Hall, Steven Hall, Joanna Kavenna, Benjamin Markovits, Nadifa Mohamed, Helen Oyeyemi, Ross Raisin, Sunjeev Sahota, Taiye Selasi, Kamila Shamsie, David Szalay and Adam Thirlwell, also from the 2003 selection.

John Freeman, the editor of Granta. Credit:Jonathan Worth Freeman led a judging panel of seven writers, literary editors and publishers in choosing the best of 150 entrants based on their body of work and new writing for publication in the magazine. "We want to thrust new writers into people's hands because they have the odds stacked against them," he said. "The limits of British writing are much wider than the geographical limit of the British Isles. The way some of these writers are interrogating the past is thrilling, and they view their nationality at a distance because they have grown up with a more media-saturated culture. "Each generation updates the sound of the language as well as the stories the culture tells about itself."

Rather than reflecting changes in British society, Freeman said the "hyphenated identities" of the writers were ahead of the curve and represented where Britain's population is headed. In preparation for judging, Freeman reread the first books of earlier generations of Granta's best young British novelists, such as Julian Barnes' "elegant" Metroland and the "controlled fury" of Winterson's Sexing the Cherry. He was not looking for replicas but for "people who had that intensity and fury in a different way". The final list is proof to him that the novel is "vital" and has "a thrilling future". American-born Freeman loved the original 1983 Best of Young British Novelists, who included Amis, Barnes, Rushdie, Pat Barker, William Boyd, Kazuo Ishiguro, Ian McEwan, Graham Swift, Rose Tremain and A.N. Wilson. "They were my gateway to British writing. I hope this generation does that for others."

See granta.com Granta's Best of Young British Novelists 2013 Naomi Alderman (1974) is the author of three novels: Disobedience, The Lessons and The Liars' Gospel. She writes and designs computer games and is co-creator of Zombies, Run!, the best-selling iPhone fitness game and audio adventure. A professor of creative writing at Bath Spa University, she has been paired with Margaret Atwood in the Rolex Mentor and Protege Arts Initiative. She is currently working on her fourth novel. "Soon and in Our Days" is a new story. Tahmima Anam (1975) is the author of the Bengal Trilogy, which chronicles three generations of the Haque family from the Bangladesh war of independence to the present day. Her debut novel, A Golden Age, was awarded the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book. It was followed in 2011 by The Good Muslim. "Anwar Gets Everything" is an excerpt from the final instalment of the trilogy, Shipbreaker, to be published in 2014 by Canongate in the UK and HarperCollins in the US. She lives in Hackney, east London, with her husband, musician and inventor Roland Lamb. Ned Beauman (1985) was born in London. His debut novel, Boxer, Beetle, won the Goldberg Prize for Outstanding Debut Fiction and the Writers' Guild Award for Best Fiction Book. His second novel, The Teleportation Accident, was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. His third novel, Glow, from which this excerpt is taken, is published in 2014 by Sceptre in the UK.

Jenni Fagan's (1977) critically acclaimed debut novel, The Panopticon, was published in 2012 and named one of the Waterstones Eleven, a selection of the best fiction debuts of the year. Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and her collection The Dead Queen of Bohemia was named 3:AM magazine's Poetry Book of the Year. She holds an MA in creative writing from Royal Holloway, University of London, and currently lives in a coastal village in Scotland. "Zephyrs" is an excerpt from her novel in progress. Adam Foulds (1974) is a poet and novelist from London. He has published two novels, The Truth About These Strange Times and The Quickening Maze, and also The Broken Word, a narrative poem set during the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya at the end of British imperial rule. He is the recipient of literary awards including the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year, the Costa Poetry Prize, the Somerset Maugham Award, the South Bank Show Prize for Literature, the Encore Award and the European Union Prize for Literature. The Quickening Maze was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2009. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2010. "A World Intact" is an excerpt from his new novel, In the Wolf's Mouth, published in 2014 by Jonathan Cape in the UK and Farrar, Straus and Giroux in the US. Xiaolu Guo (1973) studied at the Beijing Film Academy and received her MA from the National Film School in London. She has published seven novels in both English and Chinese. A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. Her other novels include UFO in Her Eyes and 20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth. She directed the award-winning films She, a Chinese and Once Upon a Time Proletarian. "Interim Zone" is an excerpt from I Am China, her new novel forthcoming from Chatto & Windus in the UK. Sarah Hall (1974) was born in Cumbria and currently lives in Norwich, Norfolk. She is the author of four novels: Haweswater, The Electric Michelangelo, The Carhullan Army (published in the US as Daughters of the North) and How to Paint a Dead Man; a collection of short stories, The Beautiful Indifference; original radio dramas; and poetry. She has won several awards, including the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Novel, the Betty Trask Award, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the James Tiptree, Jr. Award, and the Edge Hill University Short Story Prize, and has twice been recipient of the Portico Prize. She has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Prix Femina Etranger, the Arthur C. Clarke Award for science fiction, the BBC National Short Story Award and the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. "The Reservation" is an excerpt from a novel in progress. Steven Hall (1975) was born in Derbyshire. His first novel, The Raw Shark Texts, won the Borders Original Voices Award and the Somerset Maugham Award, and has been translated into 29 languages. "Spring" and "Autumn" are excerpts from his upcoming second novel, The End of Endings.

Joanna Kavenna (1973) grew up in various parts of Britain and has also lived in the US, France, Germany, Scandinavia and the Baltic States. She is the author of three novels: Inglorious, The Birth of Love and Come to the Edge; and one work of non-fiction, The Ice Museum. In 2008, she was awarded the Orange Prize for New Writing. Her work has appeared in publications including The New Yorker, The London Review of Books, The Guardian, The Observer, The Times Literary Supplement, The International Herald Tribune, The Spectator and The Telegraph. She has held writing fellowships at St Antony's College, Oxford, and St John's College, Cambridge. "Tomorrow" is an excerpt from a forthcoming novel. Benjamin Markovits (1973) grew up in London, Oxford, Texas and Berlin. He left an unpromising career as a professional basketball player to study the Romantics. Since then he has taught high-school English, worked at a left-wing cultural magazine and published six novels, including a trilogy on the life of Lord Byron. Markovits has lived in London since 2000 and is married, with a daughter and a son. He teaches creative writing at Royal Holloway, University of London. "You Don't Have to Live Like This" is an excerpt from his new novel, about a group of university friends who get involved in a scheme to regenerate Detroit. Nadifa Mohamed (1981) was born in Somalia and moved to Britain in 1986. Her first novel, Black Mamba Boy, published in 2010, was longlisted for the Orange Prize; shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, the Dylan Thomas Award, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and the PEN/Open Book Award; and won the Betty Trask Award. "Filsan" is an excerpt from her new novel, The Orchard of Lost Souls, forthcoming from Simon & Schuster in the UK and Farrar, Straus and Giroux in the US. Helen Oyeyemi (1984) is the author of The Icarus Girl and The Opposite House. Her third novel, White is for Witching, was awarded a 2010 Somerset Maugham Award, and her fourth, Mr Fox, won the 2012 Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation Award. "Boy, Snow, Bird" is an excerpt from a new novel of the same title, published in 2014 by Picador in the UK and Riverhead in the US. Ross Raisin (1979) was born in Silsden, West Yorkshire. His first novel, God's Own Country, was published in 2008 and was awarded the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award in 2009, the Guildford First Novel Prize, a Betty Trask Award and shortlisted for six other awards including the Guardian First Book Award and the International IM PAC Dublin Literary Award. His second novel, Waterline, was published in 2011. His short stories have appeared in Granta, Prospect, Esquire, Dazed & Confused, The Sunday Times and on BB C Radio 3 and 4. "Submersion" is a new story.

Sunjeev Sahota (1981) was born in Derby and currently lives in Leeds with his wife and daughter. His first novel, Ours are the Streets, was published in 2011. "Arrivals" is an excerpt from The Year of the Runaways, his unfinished second novel, forthcoming from Picador. Taiye Selasi (1979) was born in London to Nigerian and Ghanaian parents. She holds a BA from Yale and an MPhil from Oxford. Selasi made her fiction debut in Granta in 2011 with The Sex Lives of African Girls, which was selected for Best American Short Stories in 2012. Her first novel, Ghana Must Go, was published in March 2013. An avid traveller and documentary photographer, Selasi lives in Rome. "Driver" is a new story. Kamila Shamsie (1973) is the author of five novels. The first, In the City by the Sea, was published by Granta Books in 1998 and shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. Her most recent novel, Burnt Shadows, was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction and translated into more than 20 languages. She grew up in Karachi and now lives in London. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a trustee of English PE N and a member of the Authors Cricket Club. "Vipers" is an excerpt from a forthcoming novel. Zadie Smith (1975) was born in London. She is the author of the novels White Teeth, The Autograph Man and On Beauty, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2005 and won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2006. She is also the author of Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays and the editor of several anthologies, including The Book of Other People. Her most recent novel is NW, chosen as one of the "Ten Best Books of 2012" by The New York Times. She was one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists in 2003. "Just Right" is an excerpt from an unfinished novella. David Szalay (1974) was born in Canada. His family moved to the UK soon after, and he has lived here ever since. He has published three novels: London and the South East, The Innocent and Spring. He is currently working on a number of new projects – "Europa" is an excerpt from one of these.

Adam Thirlwell (1978) was born in London. He is the author of two novels, Politics and The Escape; a novella, Kapow!; and a project with international novels that includes an essaybook, Miss Herbert, which won a Somerset Maugham Award, and a compendium of translations edited for McSweeney's. He was selected as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists in 2003. His work has been translated into 30 languages. "Slow Motion" is from a novel in progress. Evie Wyld (1980) runs Review, a small independent bookshop in Peckham, south-east London. Her first novel, After the Fire, a Still Small Voice, won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and a Betty Trask Award. In 2011 she was listed as one of the Culture Show's Best New British Novelists. She was also shortlisted for the Orange Prize for New Writers, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. "After the Hedland" is an excerpt from her second novel, All the Birds, Singing, forthcoming in June 2013 from Jonathan Cape in the UK and in 2014 from Pantheon in the US.