# The Writers' Prize

The Writers' Prize, previously known as the Rathbones Folio Prize, the Folio Prize and The Literature Prize, is a literary award that was sponsored by the London-based publisher The Folio Society for its first two years, 2014–2015. Starting in 2017, the sponsor was Rathbone Investment Management. At the 2023 award ceremony, it was announced that the prize was looking for new sponsorship as Rathbones would be ending their support. In November 2023, having failed to secure a replacement sponsor, the award's governing body announced its rebrand as The Writers' Prize.

## History of the prize

The prize came into being after a group in Britain "took umbrage at the direction they saw the Booker Prize taking – they saw it leaning toward popular fiction rather than literary fiction." It was described as "complementary to other awards" and "Booker without the bow ties". Margaret Atwood said that the Folio Prize is "much needed in a world in which money is increasingly becoming the measure of all things." Mark Haddon said it was "not a mechanism for generating publicity by propelling a single book into the spotlight but a celebration of literary fiction as a whole." The co-founders are Andrew Kidd and Kate Harvey. The prize is administered by the registered charity The Literature Prize Foundation.
The Folio Prize during the first two years was presented to an English-language book of fiction published in the UK by an author from any country. Prior to its launch it was called the "Literature Prize" as a placeholder until a sponsor was found; then renamed the Folio Prize in 2014, for the Folio Society, a publisher of special editions of classic literature. The prize remuneration in the first two years was £40,000. For 2017 and 2018 the prize amount was £20,000 and starting in 2019 it was increased to £30,000. In 2021, it was reported that the £30,000 prize money had been paid to cyber-criminals posing as 2020 winner Valeria Luiselli.
Beginning with the 2017 Rathbones sponsorship, the prize was awarded to the best new work of literature published in the English language during a given year, regardless of form (fiction, non-fiction and poetry). The Rathbones sponsorship supports a number of initiatives generated out of The Folio Academy, the group of writers who form the Prize's de facto governing body. Initiatives include a new academy mentorship scheme, in association with the charity First Story, which will mentor aspiring young writers, as well as a series of Rathbones Folio Sessions throughout the year in the form of literary workshops, lectures and debates.
The jury for the prize is called the academy, a body of more than 250 writers and critics that includes Margaret Atwood, Peter Carey, A. S. Byatt, Zadie Smith and J. M. Coetzee. Books are nominated by members of the academy, three each, ranked. Points are given to each book depending on how many first, second or third rankings are earned. The top scoring books are made into a longlist of 60 books (80 in the first two years), and the judges can "call in" another 20 books from their publishers. The list of 80 nominated titles is then judged by a panel of three to five judges drawn from the academy who select a shortlist (of eight titles, up to 2022) and the final winner. In 2024 there were no judges, and all 350 academy members were invited to vote for the winners.
In 2023, three shortlists of five titles each were introduced, in the genres of fiction, non-fiction and poetry, although the prize constitution and website state that the shortlists will contain four titles, as did some newspaper reports. The winner of each genre will receive a prize of £2,000 and the genre winners will be judged for the overall Folio Prize. In 2024, the three shortlists were reduced to three titles in each category as it transitioned to become The Writers' Prize.
In November 2023, having failed to secure a replacement sponsor, the award announced its rebrand as The Writers' Prize. According to its website, The Writers' Prize continues to be "nominated and judged exclusively by the Folio Academy".

## Recipients

Note that the prize had the following titles:
* Folio Prize: 2014–2015
* No prize awarded in 2016
* Rathbones Folio Prize: 2017–2023
* The Writers' Prize: Since 2024
| Year | Author | Title | Result | Ref. |
| 2014 | George Saunders | Tenth of December: Stories | Winner | |
| 2014 | Kent Haruf | Benediction | Shortlist | |
| 2014 | Rachel Kushner | The Flamethrowers | Shortlist | |
| 2014 | Eimear McBride | A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing | Shortlist | |
| 2014 | Jane Gardam | Last Friends | Shortlist | |
| 2014 | Sergio De La Pava | A Naked Singularity | Shortlist | |
| 2014 | Anne Carson | Red Doc | Shortlist | |
| 2014 | Amity Gaige | Schroder | Shortlist | |
| 2015 | Akhil Sharma | Family Life | Winner | |
| 2015 | Ben Lerner | 10:04 | Shortlist | |
| 2015 | Miriam Toews | All My Puny Sorrows | Shortlist | |
| 2015 | Jenny Offill | Dept. of Speculation | Shortlist | |
| 2015 | Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor | Dust | Shortlist | |
| 2015 | Ali Smith | How to Be Both | Shortlist | |
| 2015 | Colm Tóibín | Nora Webster | Shortlist | |
| 2015 | Rachel Cusk | Outline | Shortlist | |
| 2016 | No prize awarded | No prize awarded | No prize awarded | No prize awarded |
| 2017 | Hisham Matar | The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land In Between | Winner | |
| 2017 | Robin Yassin-Kassab and Leila Al-Shami | Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War | Shortlist | |
| 2017 | Maggie Nelson | The Argonauts | Shortlist | |
| 2017 | Madeleine Thien | Do Not Say We Have Nothing | Shortlist | |
| 2017 | Francis Spufford | Golden Hill | Shortlist | |
| 2017 | C. E. Morgan | The Sport of Kings | Shortlist | |
| 2017 | China Miéville | This Census-Taker | Shortlist | |
| 2017 | Laura Cumming | The Vanishing Man: In Pursuit of Velazquez | Shortlist | |
| 2018 | Richard Lloyd Parry | Ghosts of the Tsunami: Death and Life in Japan's Disaster Zone | Winner | |
| 2018 | Elizabeth Strout | Anything Is Possible | Shortlist | |
| 2018 | Sally Rooney | Conversations With Friends | Shortlist | |
| 2018 | Richard Beard | The Day That Went Missing | Shortlist | |
| 2018 | Mohsin Hamid | Exit West | Shortlist | |
| 2018 | Xiaolu Guo | Once Upon a Time in the East: A Story of Growing Up | Shortlist | |
| 2018 | Jon McGregor | Reservoir 13 | Shortlist | |
| 2018 | Hari Kunzru | White Tears | Shortlist | |
| 2019 | Raymond Antrobus | The Perseverance | Winner | |
| 2019 | Ashleigh Young | Can You Tolerate This? | Shortlist | |
| 2019 | Guy Stagg | The Crossway | Shortlist | |
| 2019 | Alice Jolly | Mary Ann Sate, Imbecile | Shortlist | |
| 2019 | Anna Burns | Milkman | Shortlist | |
| 2019 | Diana Evans | Ordinary People | Shortlist | |
| 2019 | Tommy Orange | There There | Shortlist | |
| 2019 | Carys Davies | West | Shortlist | |
| 2020 | Valeria Luiselli | Lost Children Archive | Winner | |
| 2020 | Sinéad Gleeson | Constellations | Shortlist | |
| 2020 | Zadie Smith | Grand Union | Shortlist | |
| 2020 | Azadeh Moaveni | Guest House for Young Widows | Shortlist | |
| 2020 | Laura Cumming | On Chapel Sands | Shortlist | |
| 2020 | Ben Lerner | The Topeka School | Shortlist | |
| 2020 | Fiona Benson | Vertigo & Ghost | Shortlist | |
| 2020 | James Lasdun | Victory | Shortlist | |
| 2021 | Carmen Maria Machado | In the Dream House | Winner | |
| 2021 | Elaine Feeney | As You Were | Shortlist | |
| 2021 | Doireann Ní Ghríofa | A Ghost in the Throat | Shortlist | |
| 2021 | Sara Baume | handiwork | Shortlist | |
| 2021 | Amina Cain | Indelicacy | Shortlist | |
| 2021 | Monique Roffey | The Mermaid of Black Conch | Shortlist | |
| 2021 | Rachel Long | My Darling from the Lions | Shortlist | |
| 2021 | Caleb Femi | Poor | Shortlist | |
| 2022 | Colm Tóibín | The Magician | Winner | [51] [52] |
| 2022 | Philip Hoare | Albert & the Whale | Shortlist | |
| 2022 | Natasha Brown | Assembly | Shortlist | |
| 2022 | Sunjeev Sahota | China Room | Shortlist | |
| 2022 | Selima Hill | Men Who Feed Pigeons | Shortlist | |
| 2022 | Gwendoline Riley | My Phantoms | Shortlist | |
| 2022 | Damon Galgut | The Promise | Shortlist | |
| 2022 | Claire Keegan | Small Things Like These | Shortlist | |
| 2023 | Margo Jefferson | Constructing a Nervous System | Overall winner Non-fiction winner | |
| 2023 | Will Ashon | The Passengers | Non-fiction shortlist | |
| 2023 | Amy Bloom | In Love | Non-fiction shortlist | |
| 2023 | Jonathan Freedland | The Escape Artist | Non-fiction shortlist | |
| 2023 | Darren McGarvey | The Social Distance Between Us | Non-fiction shortlist | |
| 2023 | Michelle de Kretser | Scary Monsters | Fiction winner | |
| 2023 | NoViolet Bulawayo | Glory | Fiction shortlist | [54] [55] |
| 2023 | Sheila Heti | Pure Colour | Fiction shortlist | [54] [55] |
| 2023 | Daisy Hildyard | Emergency | Fiction shortlist | [54] [55] |
| 2023 | Elizabeth Strout | Lucy by the Sea | Fiction shortlist | [54] [55] |
| 2023 | Victoria Adukwei Bulley | Quiet | Poetry winner | |
| 2023 | Fiona Benson | Ephemeron | Poetry shortlist | |
| 2023 | Safiya Kamaria Kinshasa | Cane, Corn & Gully | Poetry shortlist | |
| 2023 | Zaffar Kunial | England's Green | Poetry shortlist | |
| 2023 | Yomi Ṣode | Manorism | Poetry shortlist | |
| 2024 | Laura Cumming | Thunderclap: A Memoir of Life and Art and Sudden Death | Non-fiction winner | |
| 2024 | Naomi Klein | Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World | Nonfiction shortlist | |
| 2024 | Mark O’Connell | A Thread of Violence: A Story of Truth, Invention and Murder | Nonfiction shortlist | |
| 2024 | Anne Enright | The Wren, The Wren | Fiction winner | |
| 2024 | Paul Murray | The Bee Sting | Fiction shortlist | |
| 2024 | Zadie Smith | The Fraud | Fiction shortlist | |
| 2024 | Liz Berry | The Home Child | Overall winner Poetry winner | |
| 2024 | Jason Allen-Paisant | Self-Portrait as Othello | Poetry shortlist | |
| 2024 | Mary Jean Chan | Bright Fear | Poetry shortlist | |