The Dundee International Book Prize was given from 2000 to 2016. It called itself the UK's top prize for first-time novel writers. The prize included a cash award of £5,000. Each year, the award was for an unpublished first novel on any topic and in any type of writing, as long as it was written in English. The prize was a partnership between Dundee – One City, Many Discoveries and the University of Dundee. People from all over the world could enter. From 2000 to 2010, the prize was published by Birlinn. Cargo took over from 2011 to 2014, and Freight Books handled it from 2014 to 2016.

The 2017 prize was canceled after the first round of judging because the organizers could not guarantee the winning novel would be published.

Andrew Murray Scott’s book Tumulus (the first winner in 2000) described the bohemian lifestyle in Dundee from the 1960s and 1970s to today. Claire-Marie Watson’s The Curewife won in 2002 and told the story of Dundee’s last witch execution—Grissel Jaffray in 1669. Malcolm Archibald’s Whales for a Wizard (2005 winner) was an adventure story based on Dundee’s whaling industry in the 1860s. Fiona Dunscombe’s The Triple Point of Water (2007) used her experiences working in Soho during the 1980s. Chris Longmuir’s Dead Wood (2009) was a crime novel set in a violent world of gang conflicts. Alan Wright’s Act of Murder (2010) involved magic, poisonings, and actors, with some shocking murders. Simon Ashe-Browne’s Nothing Human Left (2011) was a psychological thriller set in a Dublin public school, where a student’s criminal desires lead to a dangerous outcome. Jacob Appel’s The Man Who Wouldn’t Stand Up was a satire about patriotism in the United States after 9/11. In 2014, Amy Mason won for her novel The Other Ida. Martin Cathcart Froden, originally from Sweden, won the 2015 prize with Devil Take The Hindmost, a story that vividly describes the less respectable parts of interwar London. Devil Take the Hindmost was published by Freight Books in June 2016. Jessica Thummel was the 2016 winner. The Cure for Lonely (originally titled The Margins) is a coming-of-age story about Sam Gavin, a transgender man who moves from Kansas to San Francisco in the summer of 1989. It was published in June 2017.