At a time when cracking open a bottle of the best bubbly and curling up with a laugh-out-loud novel seems more appealing than ever, the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction 2024 has been awarded to Ferdia Lennon for his exquisitely unique and funny debut novel Glorious Exploits, published by Fig Tree, an imprint of Penguin Random House UK.

The award is the UK’s longest running prize for comic fiction and is designed to highlight the funniest novel of the past twelve months, which best evokes the Wodehouse spirit of witty characters and perfectly timed comic prose. 2025 will mark the 25th anniversary of the award.

The winner was chosen from a shortlist of seven very different titles – ranging from steampunk fantasy to romantic comedy, with a bit of time travel thrown in – that together showcase the very best ingredients of comic fiction writing, from jokes, farce, and satire, to spiced wit and wry humour. 

The announcement was made this evening at a ceremony held at 10-11 Carlton House Terrace in Central London. Ferdia Lennon receives a jeroboam of Bollinger Special Cuvée, a case of Bollinger La Grande Année, the complete set of the Everyman’s Library P.G. Wodehouse collection, and a pig named after his winning book.

Described by Roddy Doyle as “a very special, very clever, very entertaining novel” and by Douglas Stuart as “bold and totally unexpected”, Glorious Exploits is set in 412 BC, when Athens' invasion of Sicily has failed catastrophically. Thousands of Athenian soldiers are held captive in the quarries of Syracuse, starving, dejected and hanging on by the slimmest of threads. Lampo and Gelon are local potters, young men with no work and barely two obols to rub together. With not much to fill their time, they take to visiting the nearby quarry, where they discover prisoners who will, in desperation, recite lines from the plays of Euripides in return for scraps of bread and a scattering of olives. And so an idea is born: the men will put on Medea in the quarry. Because after all, you can hate the Athenians for invading your territory, but still love their poetry. 

Ferdia Lennon was born and raised in Dublin to an Irish mother and Libyan father. He holds a BA in History and Classics from University College Dublin and an MA in Prose Fiction from the University of East Anglia. His short stories have appeared in publications such as the Irish Times and the Stinging Fly. In 2019 and 2021, he received a Literature Bursary Award from the Arts Council of Ireland. After spending many years in Paris, he now lives in Norwich with his wife and son. Glorious Exploits is his debut novel. 

Ferdia Lennon said: “I was stunned and utterly delighted to get the news. This is a prize I have followed for years, and so many books I love have won or been shortlisted for it. I’m truly honoured that the judges gave me the nod amongst such a brilliant shortlist. For Samuel Beckett, the act of writing was the placing of stains on silence and nothingness. For me, it has always been more of a means to secure pig naming rights, so I am very pleased indeed.”

Peter Florence, Chair of the Judges, commented: “What a great year this has been. We were delighted with the shortlist and we’re thrilled with the winner. Glorious Exploits is a delightful mash of contemporary Irish comedy and classical Athenian tragedy. It’s a caper, a buddy story, and it had us all laughing and cheering Ferdia Lennon's comic spirit."

Victoria Carfantan, Director of Champagne Bollinger, Group Bollinger UK & Global Partnerships, added: “We are very proud of our long-standing relationship supporting the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction. It is such an important award celebrating some of the most talented names in the genre and I am delighted to extend my congratulations to Ferdia Lennon and his novel Glorious Exploits as this year’s winner.”

The judges for this year’s prize were: David Campbell (publisher, Everyman’s Library), Peter Florence (Director of The Conversation at St Martin in the Fields), Pippa Evans (comedian), Sindhu Vee (comedian), James Naughtie (broadcaster and author), and Justin Albert (Vice Chair, University of Wales; Chair, Rewilding Britain; and Advisor to the Hay Festivals).

The other 2024 shortlisted titles were: A Beginner’s Guide to Breaking and Entering by Andrew Hunter Murray, published by Hutchinson Heinemann (Penguin Random House); Good Material by Dolly Alderton, published by Fig Tree (Penguin Random House); High Vaultage by Chris Sugden and Jen Sugden, published by Gollancz (Hachette); The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley, published by Sceptre (Hachette); The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue, published by Virago (Hachette); and You Are Here by David Nicholls, published by Sceptre (Hachette).

Previous winners of the prize were: 

Bob Mortimer for The Satsuma Complex (2023)

Percival Everett for The Trees (2022)

Guy Kennaway for The Accidental Collector (2021)

Matthew Dooley for Flake (2020) 

Nina Stibbe for Reasons to be Cheerful (2019) 

Prize withheld (2018) 

Helen Fielding for Bridget Jones’s Baby: The Diaries (2017) 

Hannah Rothschild for The Improbability of Love & Paul Murray for The Mark and the Void (2016) 

Alexander McCall Smith for Fatty O’Leary’s Dinner Party (2015) 

Edward St Aubyn for Lost For Words (2014) 

Howard Jacobson for Zoo Time (2013) 

Terry Pratchett for Snuff (2012) 

Gary Shteyngart for Super Sad True Love Story (2011) 

Ian McEwan for Solar (2010) 

Geoff Dyer for Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi (2009) 

Will Self for The Butt (2008) 

Paul Torday for Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2007) 

Christopher Brookmyre for All Fun and Games until Somebody Loses an Eye (2006) 

Marina Lewycka for A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian (2005) 

Jasper Fforde for The Well of Lost Plots (2004) 

DBC Pierre for Vernon God Little (2003) 

Michael Frayn for Spies (2002) 

Jonathan Coe for The Rotter’s Club (2001) 

Howard Jacobson for The Mighty Waltzer (2000) 

Picture by Laurie Fletcher