Set up to reward “brave, bold and brilliant” small presses for taking risks on “niche fiction”, the inaugural Republic of Consciousness prize has been won by Fitzcarraldo for publishing Counternarratives by John Keene.

Fitzcarraldo, a London-based independent established in 2014, published Keene’s experimental collection of 13 stories and novellas last year. The American writer’s book was the unanimous choice of the six judges, who deemed it a “once in a generation achievement for short-form fiction” and praised its “subject matter, formal inventiveness, multitude of voices, and seriousness of purpose”.

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The Republic of Consciousness prize was set up by novelist Neil Griffiths last year to recognise the work of small publishers who take financial risks in publishing challenging and experimental fiction. The prize – unlike many larger awards – did not charge publishers an entry fee, in order to include presses that would not usually step forward. Earlier this year, several literary agents and publishing figures told the Guardian that independent publishers willing to take risks on “difficult” works were unable to access the commercial benefits of being listed for awards because of prohibitive entry costs.

At a ceremony at Fyvie Hall in London on Thursday night, Fitzcarraldo received the £3,000 top prize. The other shortlisted presses and books – Tramp Press for Mike McCormack’s novel Solar Bones, And Other Stories for Anakana Schofield’s novel Martin John, and Galley Beggar for Paul Stanbridge’s Forbidden Line – will each receive £1,000. Griffiths said that he hoped the publishers will give a third of the prize to their winning book’s author.

Griffiths raised the prize money by donating £3,000 of his own money, with a further £4,000 raised by donations and an online raffle. “Yes, we are spreading £6,000 between four publishers – but for some of them, that is a print run,” he said. “That is a big deal.”

Griffiths praised the willingness of small presses to take risks on experimental debuts, like A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing by Eimear McBride – which took nine years to find a publisher, before being picked up by Galley Beggar and winning the 2014 Baileys prize – and Claire-Louise Bennett’s Pond, which was initially published to great acclaim by The Stinging Fly in Ireland and Fitzcarraldo in the UK, before being picked up by Penguin Random House in America last year. “Compared with the marketing weight the big publishing houses have, the small presses are still struggling for that shop window,” he said. “The liveliness of publishing requires high-end commercial novels and niche novels, even if they don’t sell millions.”

He said the prize would continue to promote the work of small presses and run again next year, promising to hunt for corporate sponsors to “double, if not triple, the prize fund”.