When the Guardian first book award was launched in 1999, Zadie Smith was a smart student still waiting to be published, and a shocking account of the Rwandan genocide caused a stand-off between judges and reading groups before narrowly beating David Mitchell’s first novel to the inaugural prize.

The Rwanda book was Philip Gourevitch’s magisterial We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families. Mitchell’s debut was Ghostwritten, which some fans still maintain is his finest work, and Smith would burst on to the literary scene in 2000 to take the prize with White Teeth.

In its 16 years, the £10,000 prize – which is judged with help from Waterstones reading groups across the country – has gone to seven works of non-fiction, five novels, three short-story collections, and one graphic novel.

Proud as we are of every one of those winners, each was selected from a shortlist and it’s in the shortlists that the soul of any prize lives. Naomi Klein, Hari Kunzru, Eleanor Catton and Hisham Matar are among the writers who made their first appearances on ours.

As did Dave Eggers, who has abundantly vindicated our hunch that he was more than the brat that the title of his memoir debut – A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius – might suggest, and Susanna Clarke, whose 2004 shortlistee, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, has only now made it to television.

As admission opens for entries to the 17th prize, we’ve been delving into the archives. Here’s what we found:

2014

Winner: Young Skins by Colin Barrett

Shortlist:
Age of Ambition by Evan Osnos
Do No Harm by Henry Marsh
The Night Guest by Fiona McFarlane
Things to Make and Break by May-Lan Tan (readers’ choice)

2013

Winner: The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan

Shortlist:
We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo
Sex and the Citadel by Shereen El Feki
Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
Kiss Me First by Lottie Moggach

2012

Winner: The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers

Shortlist:
Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-Cream Float Before He Stole My Ma by Kerry Hudson
The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
Sandstorm by Lindsey Hilsum
Beyond the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo

2011

Winner: The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Shortlist:
Down the Rabbit Hole by Juan Pablo Villalobos (reader choice)
The Collaborator by Mirza Waheed
The Submission by Amy Waldman
Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman

2010

Winner: Romantic Moderns: English Writers, Artists and the Imagination from Virginia Woolf to John Piper by Alexandra Harris

Shortlist:
Boxer, Beetle by Ned Beauman
Your Presence is Requested at Suvanto by Maile Chapman
Black Mamba Boy by Nadifa Mohamed
Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error by Kathryn Schulz

2009

Winner: An Elegy for Easterly by Petina Gappah

Shortlist:
The Wilderness by Samantha Harvey
The Selected Works of TS Spivet by Reif Larsen
The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton
A Swamp Full of Dollars by Michael Peel

2008

Winner: The Rest Is Noise by Alex Ross

Shortlist:
Stalin’s Children by Owen Matthews
God’s Own Country by Ross Raisin
A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz
A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif

2007

Winner: Children of the Revolution by Dinaw Mengestu

Shortlist:
A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam
Imperial Life in the Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran
God’s Architect by Rosemary Hill
What was Lost by Catherine O’Flynn

2006

Winner: A Thousand Years of Good Prayers by Yiyun Li

Shortlist:
Harbor by Lorraine Adams
Poppy Shakespeare by Clare Allan
In the Country of Men by Hisham Matar
Everyman’s Rules for Scientific Living by Carrie Tiffany

2005

Winner: Stuart: A Life Backwards by Alexander Masters

Shortlist:
The Farm by Richard Benson
No god but God by Reza Aslan
Bombay: Maximum City by Suketu Mehta
Sightseeing by Rattawut Lapcharoensap

2004

Winner: Mutants: On the Form, Varieties and Errors of the Human Body by Armand Marie Leroi

Shortlist:
Ground Water by Matthew Hollis
Natasha by David Bezmozgis
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
The Places in Between by Rory Stewart

2003

Winner: Mountains of the Mind by Robert Macfarlane

Shortlist:
Brick Lane by Monica Ali
Stasiland by Anna Funder
Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre
Into The Silent Land by Paul Broks

2002

Winner: Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer

Shortlist:
The Impressionist by Hari Kunzru
Mapping Mars by Oliver Morton
Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller
The Only Good Thing Anyone Has Ever Done by Sandra Newman

2001

Winner: Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware

Shortlist:
Anthony Blunt: His Lives by Miranda Carter
Wittgenstein’s Poker by David Edmonds and John Eidinow
Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold
The Dark Room by Rachel Seiffert

2000

Winner: White Teeth by Zadie Smith

Shortlist:
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski
Catfish and Mandala: a Vietnamese odyssey by Andrew Pham
No Logo by Naomi Klein

1999

Winner: We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families by Philip Gourevitch

Shortlist:
Boxy an Star by Daren King
The Blue Bedspread by Raj Kamal Jha
No Place Like Home by Gary Younge
The Lighthouse Stevensons by Bella Bathurst
Ghostwritten by David Mitchell