Gurnaik Johal wins the Somerset Maugham Award for a second time, this year for his debut novel Saraswati (Serpent’s Tail, Profile Books), described by judge Ellen Wiles as an “astonishingly ambitious book”. Gurnaik was previously awarded the Somerset Maugham Award in 2023 for his short story collection We Move (Serpent’s Tail, Profile Books).
Gurnaik said:
“I’m delighted to have won a Somerset Maugham Award again. When I first received the prize in 2023, I’d written a book set entirely in London. Winning helped to embolden me to write about faraway places, so it means a lot that the resulting novel, Saraswati, has been recognised in this way three years later.”
The Somerset Maugham Award is given for published fiction, non-fiction, or poetry by authors under 30 to help enable foreign travel. Speaking about this year’s winners, judge Sandeep Parmar said:
“Each of this year’s winning books in different ways call into question the expectations of their genres—and push readers towards complex realities. Such boldness and such bravery give me immense hope for the future of literature.”
The winners of the SoA Awards will be celebrated at a ceremony at Southwark Cathedral this evening, hosted by librettist and composer Helen Epega, with a keynote speech delivered by author, actor and activist Cerrie Burnell. The awards will be livestreamed from 6:55pm.
Winners and runners-up across the nine different awards will share a total prize fund of more than £130,000. The awards recognise authors at all stages of their careers, for works of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, across a variety of genres.
Oluwaseun Olayiwola and Tom Bailey also receive the Somerset Maugham Award this evening, for Strange Beach (Fitzcarraldo Editions) and Please Do Not Touch or Feed the Horses (Poetry London Editions) respectively. Both won the Eric Gregory Award, for a collection by poets under the age of 30, at last year’s SoA Awards.
Oluwaseun said:
“I’m so grateful to be awarded a Somerset Maugham Award, the year after receiving an Eric Gregory Award—sometimes a book’s life can feel brief and to have this recognition from the SoA two years in a row, definitely vitiates that sensation. The award is going to help me develop new work, which is all a writer could really ask for.”
Tom said:
“It’s such an honour to have won the Somerset Maugham Award this year. I can’t quite believe that my little book of poems is still finding new readers. To the judges: thank you for believing in my work. To any publishers out there: I have a new manuscript ready to go if you want first dibs!”
This year’s Eric Gregory Award winners include Jack Cooper, for 16 Psyche, described by judge Rosie Miles as “a compellingly original and poignant tale of lost love”. Jack previously won an Eric Gregory Award in 2022, for his pamphlet Break the Nose of Every Beautiful Thing (Doomsday Press).
He said:
“I wrote the first draft of 16 Psyche during my solo residency at Thomas Cottage in 2023, which winners of the Eric Gregory Award are invited to, so 16 Psyche owes a lot to my first award! I didn’t touch that draft for more than two years before starting all over again, but my winning collection is built on those foundations. I don’t know when else I could have dedicated a week to uninterrupted ideation and research.”
Other winners tonight include Vijay Khurana, who receives the McKitterick Prize for The Passenger Seat (Peninsula Press), and Harriet Armstrong who wins the Betty Trask Prize for To Rest Our Minds and Bodies (Les Fugitives).
The winners for each award are:
ALCS Tom Gallon Trust Award
Sponsored by ALCS, the ALCS Tom-Gallon Trust Award is awarded for a published or unpublished short story by a writer who has had at least one short story accepted for publication. The winner receives £2,000, the runner-up £1,000, and £500 is awarded to each of the shortlist.
Judged by Andre Bagoo, Yan Ge, Peter Hobbs and Eley Williams.
Winner:
Liadan Ní Chuinn for ‘Amalur’ (Granta Books)
Andre Bagoo said:
“Told in charged, disquieting prose that underscores the vagaries of language and society, ‘Amalur’ is ruled by its own cosmologies: the sun and moon, presence and absence, humour and heartbreak. Reconsidered is the nuclear family, who gains admission, and the vistas that open beyond the terse sentences that hold us.”
Runner-up:
JG Lynas for ‘King of All Hogs’
Eley Williams said:
“With coded social gestures and unsaid or unsayable truths at its heart, the ambitious and stylish ‘King of All Hogs’ is a remarkable cultivation of terror. Intense and expertly-crafted narrative pressure ensures the story’s characters, dialogue and setting all linger long in the mind; chilling, enthralling fiction.”
Betty Trask Prize
The Betty Trask Prize is presented for a first novel by a writer under 35. A single prize winner receives £10,000 and the remaining fund is split between the shortlist.
Judged by Andrew Cowan, Daisy Lafarge and Stephanie Sy-Quia.
Winner:
Harriet Armstrong for To Rest Our Minds and Bodies (Les Fugitives)
Daisy Lafarge said:
“To Rest Our Minds and Bodies is a wonderfully singular work, and one I couldn’t stop thinking about. Armstrong’s prose has the impressive quality of thought, perception and feeling being worked out on the page in real time: difficult, circuitous, and brightly unexpected.”
Cholmondeley Awards
The Cholmondeley Awards for Poets were founded by the late Dowager Marchioness of Cholmondeley in 1966 to recognise the achievement and distinction of individual poets.
The winners receive £1,680 each.
Judged by Romalyn Ante, Malika Booker, Fred D’Aguiar and Lachlan Mackinnon.
Winners:
Nick Makoha
Jack Mapanje
Kim Moore
André Naffis-Sahely
Joelle Taylor
Fred D’Aguiar said:
“Poets confess to weeping when they hear that they won a Cholmondeley Award. They consider the award to be the highest achievement of their writing lives. There isn’t a t-shirt that says ‘I won a Cholmondeley’ or a tattoo or a tote bag or a brand of tea or coffee, but the honorific is emblazoned on the souls of all who have been graced with it.”
The Eric Gregory Awards
The Eric Gregory Awards, for a collection by poets under the age of 30, were founded in 1960 by the late Dr Eric Gregory for the encouragement of young poets.
Winners of the Eric Gregory Awards are invited to a free solo week residency at Thomas Cottage. Part of a historic farmhouse in the Lake District hamlet of Hartsop, the cottage is in a beautiful location in the rising fells just south of Ullswater. The house is generously reserved for poets who have won an Eric Gregory Award, usually in the January and February following their Award.
Winners of the Eric Gregory Awards receive £5,670 each. They will also be invited to have a poem, of the winning collection or from other work, published in the summer edition of Poetry London.
Judged by Victoria Adukwei Bulley, Caroline Bird, Jasmine Gardosi, Roy Mcfarlane, Rosie Miles and Jenny Mitchell.
Winners:
Jack Cooper for 16 Psyche
Ellie Grant for The Waiting Game
Bethany Handley for Cling Film (Seren Books)
Rency Raquid for Rot Takes Time
Anna Stockdale for Smithereens
Jasmine Gardosi said:
“Judging the Eric Gregory Awards this year has both sent me to other worlds and pulled me deeper into this one. We have read voices that range from snappy and lucid, to sparse and desolate, to mystical and fae-like in its lyricism. What has been consistent is the ability of each winner to make me pause at a line, to take a break in the middle of a poem, to mutter “wow” under my breath. I have been impressed by the risk-taking, the world-building, and the deftness with which these writers have done two things, at the same time: tell a story through their collection, and also hit the mark with each of their poems. Whether it be on trauma, on truth, on family, freedom, or loneliness – the writing of every single winner has hacked into my mind, and changed it.”
Gordon Bowker Volcano Prize
The Gordon Bowker Volcano Prize is awarded to a UK or Irish writer, or a writer currently resident in those countries, for a novel focusing on the experience of travel away from home. In memory of Malcolm Lowry and endowed by Gordon Bowker, his biographer, and Ramdei Bowker. The winner receives £2,000 and the runner-up £750.
Judged by Soula Emmanuel, Anietie Isong and Derek Owusu.
Winner:
Salma Ibrahim for Salutation Road (Mantle, Pan Macmillan)
Soula Emmanuel said:
“Salutation Road is a heartfelt and surprising exploration of migrant contradictions. It tells the story of Sirad Ali, a young Somali woman in London with a constrained life and a heavy history. She yearns for a sense of truth and belonging which seems to elude her, until a magic London bus takes her to Mogadishu, and the life she might have led. Salma Ibrahim has written a refreshing and ambitious take on the timeless immigrant questions of dislocation, guilt and hope. This novel is tangled and it is beautiful.”
Runner-up:
Jadelin Gangbo for Ground (Jacaranda Books)
Derek Owusu said:
“Ground is an incredible contribution to the literature of the diaspora. Gangbo follows and details the fractures of a life lived across different continents with the artistic precision and compassion for characters of a born storyteller. We experience grief of abandonment, the alienation of a displaced childhood, the slow reconstruction of the self on unfamiliar streets, but there is hope and healing among the shards of memory. A life affirming novel.”
McKitterick Prize
The McKitterick Prize is awarded for a first novel, published or unpublished, by a writer over 40. The winner receives £4,000, the runner-up £2,000, with each shortlisted author receiving £1,000.
Judged by Susmita Bhattacharya, Rebecca Foster, Aamer Hussein, Wenyan Lu, Kathy O’Shaughnessy, Nick Rennison and Tom Vowler.
Winner:
Vijay Khurana for The Passenger Seat (Peninsula Press)
Kathy O’Shaughnessy said:
“Two teenage boys are on a road trip in west Canada: fearful, anxious, microscopically aware of each other. Slowly the move towards violence feels unavoidable. What makes this debut so formidable is Khurana’s psychological acuity, which is splendid – needle-sharp and real. A really gifted and humane addition to the toxic masculinity debate.”
Runner-up:
Patrick Ryan for Buckeye (Bloomsbury Publishing)
Wenyan Lu said:
“Set in a fictional town in the US between 1940s and 1970s, Buckeye is an absorbing and heartfelt read. The characters are authentically portrayed and developed. It is a moving story about ordinary people.”
Queen’s Knickers Award
Sponsored by its founder, Nicholas Allan, the Queen’s Knickers Award is an annual prize for an outstanding children’s original illustrated book for ages 0-7. It recognises books that strike a quirky, new note and grab the attention of a child, whether in the form of curiosity, amusement, horror or excitement. The winner receives £5,000, as well as a golden Queen’s Knickers badge, as depicted in Nicholas Allan’s original book. The runner-up receives £1,000 and a silvered badge.
Judged by Ella McLeod, Jasmine Richards and Harry Woodgate.
Winner:
X. Fang for We Are Definitely Human (Pushkin Children’s Books)
Jasmine Richards said:
“X Fang pulls off one of the hardest things in a children’s book – a story that is properly funny and a story that is properly moving. I love that it centres kindness as a choice. I love that no one, not Mr and Mrs Li, the townspeople nor the dog are fooled by the aliens. This is a book that explores what it means to meet those that are different to us and how such meetings can enrich our lives. This book looked like nothing else on the list – its use of darkness and neon brights felt so refreshing and, yes, different, and yes I felt enriched by it. I think children and the adults in their lives will love it. Beautifully drawn and beautifully executed. Definitely… our winner.”
Runners-up:
Katie Clapham and illustrator Nadia Shireen for The Tour at School (Walker Books)
Ella McLeod said:
“This story was so delightfully voicey and is such a brilliant example of author/illustrator cohesion – the text and the pictures work together so seamlessly. I cackled at the bad biscuit exchange and adored how free of adults the whole journey through the school was. The narrative was so relatable, a story that will really help arm a young person as they begin such an exciting new chapter – a picture book about kids for kids. A real treasure.”
Somerset Maugham Awards
W. Somerset Maugham set up a fund in 1947 to enable young writers to enrich their work by gaining experience of foreign countries. The awards are given for a published work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry.
The winners each receive £2,666.
Judged by Akeem Balogun, Sandeep Parmar, Ellen Wiles.
Winners:
Tom Bailey for Please Do Not Touch or Feed the Horses (Poetry London Editions)
Gurnaik Johal for Saraswati (Serpent’s Tail, Profile Books)
Alice Loxton for Eleanor: A 200-Mile Walk in Search of England’s Lost Queen (Macmillan, Pan Macmillan)
Oluwaseun Olayiwola for Strange Beach (Fitzcarraldo Editions)
Lucy Rose for The Lamb (Orion, Weidenfeld and Nicolson)
Grace Spence Green for To Exist As I Am (Profile Books, Wellcome Collection)
Sandeep Parmar said:
“Each of this year’s winning books in different ways call into question the expectations of their genres—and push readers towards complex realities. Such boldness and such bravery give me immense hope for the future of literature.”
Travelling Scholarships
The Travelling Scholarships were established in 1944 to enable British creative writers to keep in touch with their colleagues abroad. As directed by the anonymous founder of the trust, the Scholarships are administered by the SoA and recipients are nominated by the assessors for the year.
Discretionary prize amounts are awarded to each 2026 recipient by the assessors: Brian Dillon, Joy Francis, Daniel Hahn, Louise Jury and Johnny Pitts.
Winners:
Kole Fulmine
Rosalind Harvey
Amber Husain
JC Niala
Florence Scordoulis
Louise Tickle
Nadine White
Lillian Wilkie
Rukhsana Yasmin
Assessor Daniel Hahn said:
“I love the openness of the SoA Travelling Scholarships – where else would you find such a fascinatingly diverse group of writers together on one list? From translators to journalists to playwrights… Every year I’m surprised by the selection. Each of our nine writers this year is driven by different interests and commitments and passions, and the judges hope the Travelling Scholarship should be able to make a meaningful difference to the work of them all.”
Buy titles from all the winning and shortlisted authors here.
