Meet the 2023 Rathbones Folio Prize Judges
Multi award-winning author of novels and short stories Ali Smith (Chair)
Highly acclaimed poet, novelist and non-fiction writer Jackie Kay
Prize-winning novelist Guy Gunaratne
We’re delighted to announce that the 2023 Prize will include category finalists in Fiction, Non-Fiction & Poetry
Ali Smith (Chair)
Ali Smith (Chair) is the author of many novels including How to be both, Artful, There but for the, The Accidental, Hotel World, the Seasonal Quartet series and Companion piece. Hotel World and The Accidental were both shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Orange Prize. How to be both won the Bailey’s Prize, the Goldsmiths Prize and the Costa Novel of the Year Award, and it was shortlisted for the Folio Prize and Man Booker Prize. Autumn was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2017 and Winter was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize 2018.
Jackie Kay
Jackie Kay was born in Edinburgh. She was the third modern Makar, the Scottish poet laureate, from 2016 to 2021. Her first novel, Trumpet, won the Authors’ Club First Novel Award and the Guardian Fiction Prize. She is also the author of three collections of stories, Why Don’t You Stop Talking, Wish I Was Here, and Reality, Reality; two poetry collections, Fiere and Bantam; a play, The Lamplighter; and her multi-award-winning memoir, Red Dust Road. She is Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University and was Chancellor of the University of Salford from 2014 to 2021.
Guy Gunaratne
Guy Gunaratne is a novelist based between London and Malmö. Their first novel In Our Mad and Furious City won the International Dylan Thomas Prize (2019), the Jhalak Prize (2019) and Authors Club Award (2019). It was also shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize and longlisted for the Booker Prize, as well as the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction. Guy was appointed the Fellow Commoner in the Creative Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge (2019 – 2022).
Their second novel Mister, Mister will be published 2023.
THE 2022 PRIZE WINNER
The Magician, by Colm Tóibín is the 2022 Rathbones Folio Prize winner
“a capacious, generous, ambitious novel, taking in a great sweep of 20th century history, yet rooted in the intimate detail of one man’s private life”
Chair of Judges, Tessa Hadley
ABOUT THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE
‘THE WRITERS’ PRIZE’
More than Just a Prize - Our Work with Young People
In July we celebrated the young writers who have been mentored over the past year by Academy members through this groundbreaking scheme, run in partnership with First Story.
Lauren Betts, Tegan Blake-Barnard, Emily Freeman and Cheyenne Taylor-Guest shared some of their dazzling new writing at the London Library. Their mentors Stephanie Cross, Caleb Azumah Nelson, Fiona Benson and Chloe Aridjis were there to introduce and cheer them on.
About the Rathbones Folio Prize
First awarded in 2014 (originally known as The Folio Prize), the Rathbones Folio Prize is open to all works of literature written in English and published in the UK, and is worth over £30,000. All genres and all forms of literature are eligible, except work written primarily for children.
The Prize is unique in that it is judged by members of the 300-strong Rathbones Folio Academy of esteemed writers and critics.
Prize winners to date are: Tenth of December by George Saunders (2014); Family Life by Akhil Sharma (2015); The Return by Hisham Matar (2017); Ghosts of the Tsunami by Richard Lloyd Parry (2018); The Perseverance by Raymond Antrobus (2019, pictured above); Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli (2020); In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado (2021); and Colm Tóibín, The Magician (2022).
About Rathbones
We’re delighted to hold an expanded partnership with our sponsors Rathbones Investment Management, which secures the future of the Prize, Mentorships and Sessions until at least 2023. The sponsorship by Rathbones enables us to step up our charitable objectives, while also increasing the value of the Prize, with the winner receiving a cheque for £30,000.
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