Hawthornden Prize
The 2025 Hawthornden Prize for Literature
has been awarded to
Manya Wilkinson
for
LUBLIN
“Can history cast a shadow on the past as much as it does on the future? This is the question that Manya Wilkinson asks in Lublin, a proleptic masterpiece that crosses the boys’ adventure story, the quest narrative, and Freud’s book on jokes to come up with an indelibly original and unforgettable, haunted, and haunting book. There is nothing like this novel in contemporary literature.”
NEEL MUKHERJEE
Elya is the lad with the vision, and Elya has the map. Ziv and Kiva aren’t so sure. The water may run out before they find the Village of Lakes. The food may run out before the flaky crescent pastries of Prune Town. They may never reach the Village of Girls (how disappointing); they may well stumble into Russian Town, rumoured to be a dangerous place for Jews (it is). As three young boys set off from Mezritsh with a case of bristle brushes to sell in the great market town of Lublin, wearing shoes of uneven quality and possessed of decidedly unequal enthusiasms, they quickly find that nothing, not Elya’s jokes nor Kiva’s prayers nor Ziv’s sublime irritatingness, can prepare them for the future as it comes barrelling down to meet them. Absurd, riveting, alarming, hilarious, the dialogue devastatingly sharp and the pacing extraordinary, Lublin is a journey to nowhere that changes everything it touches.
Previous winners of the Hawthornden Prize
2024 - Samantha Harvey
2023 - Moses McKenzie
2022 - Ian Duhig
2021 - Naoise Dolan
2020 - John McCullough
2019 - Sue Prideaux
2018 - Jenny Uglow
2017 - Graham Swift
2016 - Tessa Hadley
2015 - Colm Tóibín
2014 - Emily Berry
2013 - Jamie McKendrick
2012 - Ali Smith
2011 - Candia McWilliam
2010 - Alice Oswald
2009 - Patrick French
2008 - Nicola Barker
2007 - M. J. Hyland
2006 - Alexander Masters
2005 - Justin Cartwright
2004 - Jonathan Bate
2003 - William Fiennes
2002 - Eamon Duffy
2001 - Helen Simpson
2000 - Michael Longley
1999 - Antony Beevor
1998 - Charles Nicholl
1997 - John Lanchester
1996 - Hilary Mantel
1995 - James Michie
1994 - Tim Pears
1993 - Andrew Barrow
1992 - Ferdinand Mount
1991 - Claire Tomalin
1990 - Kit Wright
1989 - Alan Bennett
1988 - Colin Thubron
1983 - Jonathan Keates
1982 - Timothy Mo
1981 - Douglas Dunn
1980 - Christopher Reid
1979 - P. S. Rushforth
1978 - David Cook
1977 - Bruce Chatwin
1976 - Robert Nye
1975 - David Lodge
1974 - Oliver Sacks
1970 - Piers Paul Read
1969 - Geoffrey Hill
1968 - Michael Levey
1967 - Michael Frayn
1965 - William Trevor
1964 - V. S. Naipaul
1963 - Alistair Horne
1962 - Robert Shaw
1961 - Ted Hughes
1960 - Alan Sillitoe
1958 - Dom Moraes
1944 - Martyn Skinner
1943 - Sidney Keyes
1942 - John Llewelyn Rhys
1941 - Graham Greene
1940 - James Pope-Hennessy
1939 - Christopher Hassall
1938 - David Jones
1937 - Ruth Pitter
1936 - Evelyn Waugh
1935 - Robert Graves
1934 - James Hilton
1933 - Vita Sackville-West
1932 - Charles Morgan
1931 - Kate O'Brien
1930 - Geoffrey Dennis
1929 - Lord David Cecil
1928 - Siegfried Sassoon
1927 - Henry Williamson
1926 - Vita Sackville-West
1925 - Seán O'Casey
1924 - Ralph Hale Mottram
1923 - David Garnett
1922 - Edmund Blunden
1921 - Romer Wilson
1920 - John Freeman
1919 - Edward Shanks
The Hawthornden Prize, one of Britain’s oldest literary awards, was established in 1919 by Alice Warrender. This £25,000 prize is awarded annually to a British, Irish or British-based author for a work of “imaginative literature” – including poetry, novels, history, biography and creative non-fiction – published in the previous calendar year. The prize is for a book in English, not for a translation. Previous winners of the prize are excluded from the shortlist. Unlike other major literary awards, the Hawthornden Prize does not solicit submissions.