Maria Reva was announced as the winner of the £10,000 Gordon Burn Prize 2026 for Endling, published by Virago, on 5 March. The ceremony took place at Northern Stage, in Gordon Burn’s home city of Newcastle upon Tyne.
Maria was joined by her fellow shortlisted authors: Omar El Akkad, Sarah Hall, Elizabeth Lovatt, Anthony Shapland and Morgan Talty for an in-conversation event hosted by Sarah Shaffi and there was music from singer-songwriter Richard Dawson.
Endling begins in Ukraine, 2022. Yeva is a maverick scientist who scours the country’s forests and valleys, trying and failing to breed rare snails while her relatives urge her to settle down and start a family of her own. What they don’t know: Yeva already dates plenty of men – not for love, but to fund her work – entertaining Westerners who come to Ukraine on guided romance tours believing they’ll find docile brides untainted by feminism. Nastia and her sister, Solomiya, are also entangled in the booming marriage industry, posing as a hopeful bride and her translator while secretly searching for their missing mother, who vanished after years of fierce activism against the romance tours. So begins a journey of a lifetime across a country on the brink of war: three angry women, a truckful of kidnapped bachelors, and Lefty, a last-of-his-kind snail with one final shot at perpetuating his species. …. read more
https://newwritingnorth.com/maria-reva-wins-the-gordon-burn-prize-2026
https://www.culturednortheast.co.uk/p/writer-born-in-ukraine-wins-2026