The longlist has been revealed for the 2015 Warwick Prize for Writing, presented every two years by the University of Warwick to writing in English of any genre, form or nationality. Nominations come from staff, students and alumni of the university and of Australia’s Monash University (and, for the first time this year, publishers’ own submissions), with each able to nominate one piece of work on that year’s chosen theme. For 2015, said theme is instinct. The winner receives £25,000 and the chance of a short placement at the University of Warwick.

Nominated this year are eight works of fiction, four works of non-fiction and one work of poetry:

FICTION

Spill Simmer Falter Wither by Sara Baume

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

The Dig by Cynan Jones

Redeployment by Phil Klay

A Man In Love by Karl Ove Knausgaard in a translation by Don Bartlett

Lila by Marilynne Robinson

Ismael and His Sisters by Louise Stern

Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer

NON-FICTION

Divided Lives by Lyndall Gordon

The Lagoon: How Aristotle Invented Science by Armand Marie Leroi

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

Skyfaring by Mark Vanhoenacker

POETRY

Her Birth by Rebecca Goss

The judging panel consists of author and academic Robert Macfarlane, actress and director Fiona Shaw, Lonely Planet founder Tony Wheeler, physician and writer Gavin Francis, and chairing the panel, author A L Kennedy, who says of the longlist: ‘I’m delighted to see we have such a strong and varied list and am looking forward to our judging discussions for the shortlist and prize. My best wishes and thanks to all those currently included and to my fellow judges.’

Founded in 2009, the prize has previously been awarded to Naomi Klein for her non-fictional assault on capitalism The Shock Doctrine, to Peter Forbes for his work of cultural history Dazzled and Deceived, and to Alice Oswald for her poem “Memorial”.