ANNOUNCING THE 2023 RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE WINNERS
Book of the Year: Constructing a Nervous System – Margo Jefferson
Category Winners
Non-Fiction: Constructing a Nervous System – Margo Jefferson
Fiction: Scary Monsters – Michelle de Kretser
Poetry: Quiet – Victoria Adukwei Bulley
NON-FICTION
Constructing a Nervous System By Margo Jefferson
FICTION
SCARY MONSTERS BY MICHELLE DE KRETSER
POETRY
QUIET BY VICTORIA ADUKWEI BULLEY
The Judges said:
Life as a living art. A joyous, moving and inventive read.
The Judges said:
A sublime novel that slips, fascinates and terrifies at once. De Kretser’s Scary Monsters deserves to be read again and again.
The Judges said:
Impresses with its strength and power, its ingenious investigation of inner life, the tensions and surprises within. The book’s quiet balance shook us to the core.
2023 Shortlists
Non-Fiction
The Passengers
by Will Ashon
In Love
by Amy Bloom
The Escape Artist
by Jonathan Freedland
Constructing a Nervous System
by Margo Jefferson
The Social Distance Between Us
by Darren McGarvey
Fiction
Glory
by NoViolet Bulawayo
Scary Monsters
by Michelle de Kretser
Pure Colour
by Sheila Heti
Emergency
by Daisy Hildyard
Lucy by the Sea
by Elizabeth Strout
Poetry
Quiet
by Victoria Adukwei Bulley
Ephemeron
by Fiona Benson
Cane, Corn & Gully
by Safiya Kamaria Kinshasa
England’s Green
by Zaffar Kunial
Manorism
by Yomi Ṣode
ABOUT US
More than Just a Prize - the Literature Prize Foundation
Our groundbreaking mentorship scheme, run in partnership with First Story, has worked with dozens of emerging writers from disadvantaged communities since its inception in 2017.
Furthermore, our partnership with UEA allows a Rathbones Folio Prize-winning or shortlisted author to take up a Visiting Fellowship each year; the current fellow is Sunjeev Sahota, shortlisted in 2022 for his novel China Room.
Current Projects
We are working with spinal injuries charity Horatio’s Garden on a writing for wellbeing scheme, while our partnership with the University of Chichester’s Ukrainian Digital Writer in Residence gives a voice in English to eminent Ukrainian author Volodymyr Rafeienko.
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); The Magician by Colm Tóibín (2022); and Constructing a Nervous System by Margo Jefferson (2023).
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 overall winner receiving a cheque for £30,000 and category winners receiving £2,000 each.
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