Cheltenham Prize for Literature
Encyclopedia
The Cheltenham Prize is awarded at the Cheltenham Literature Festival
to the author of any book published in the relevant year which "has received less acclaim than it deserved".
Cheltenham Literature Festival
The Times Cheltenham Literature Festival, a large-scale international festival of literature in the Spa town of Cheltenham, and part of Cheltenham Festivals: also responsible for the Jazz, Music and Science Festivals that run every year....
to the author of any book published in the relevant year which "has received less acclaim than it deserved".
Past winners
- 1979 Angela CarterAngela CarterAngela Carter was an English novelist and journalist, known for her feminist, magical realism, and picaresque works...
for The Bloody ChamberThe Bloody ChamberThe Bloody Chamber is a collection of short fiction by Angela Carter. It was first published in the United Kingdom in 1979 by Gollancz and won the Cheltenham Festival Literary Prize. All of the stories share a common theme of being closely based upon fairytales or folk tales... - 1980 Thomas Pakenham for The Boer War
- 1981 D. M. ThomasD. M. ThomasDonald Michael Thomas, known as D. M. Thomas , is a Cornish novelist, poet, and translator.Thomas was born in Redruth, Cornwall, UK. He attended Trewirgie Primary School and Redruth Grammar School before graduating with First Class Honours in English from New College, Oxford in 1959...
for The White HotelThe White HotelThe White Hotel is a novel written by the English poet, translator and novelist D. M. Thomas. It was first published in January 1981 by Gollancz in Great Britain and in March 1981 by The Viking Press in the United States... - 1982 Simon GraySimon GraySimon James Holliday Gray, CBE , was an English playwright and memoirist who also had a career as a university lecturer in English literature at Queen Mary, University of London, for 20 years...
for Quartermaine's TermsQuartermaine's TermsQuartermaine's Terms is a play by Simon Gray which won The Cheltenham Prize in 1982.-Plot:The play takes place over a period of two years in the 1960s in the staffroom at a Cambridge school for teaching English to foreigners... - 1983 Alisdair Gray for Unlikely Stories Mostly
- 1984 Beatrix CampbellBeatrix CampbellMary Lorimer Beatrix Campbell, OBE is a British campaigning journalist and author.Since the mid 1970s, she has published numerous articles and book reviews in such publications as Marxism Today, Red Rag, Time Out, Feminist Review, New Statesman, New Socialist, The Guardian, The Independent,...
for Wigan Pier Revisited - 1985 Frank McLynnFrank McLynnFrancis James McLynn, FRHistS, FRGS — known as Frank McLynn — is a British author, biographer, historian and journalist. He is noted for critically acclaimed biographies of Napoleon Bonaparte, Robert Louis Stevenson, Carl Jung, Richard Francis Burton and Henry Morton Stanley.McLynn was educated at...
for The Jacobite Army of England: 1745, The Final Campaign - 1986 Frank McGuiness for Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the SommeObserve the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the SommeObserve the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme is a 1985 play by Frank McGuinness.-Plot synopsis:The play centres on the experiences of eight Unionist Irishmen who volunteer to serve in the 36th Division at the beginning of the First World War...
- 1987 James KelmanJames KelmanJames Kelman is an influential writer of novels, short stories, plays and political essays. His novel A Disaffection was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction in 1989...
for Greyhound for Breakfast - 1988 Peter RobinsonPeter Robinson (poet)Peter Robinson is a British poet born in Salford, Lancashire.-Life and career:...
for The Other Life - 1989 Medbh McGuckianMedbh McGuckianMedbh McGuckian is a poet from Northern Ireland.-Biography:She was born the third of six children as Maeve McCaughan to Hugh and Margaret McCaughan in North Belfast. Her father was a school headmaster and her mother an influential art and music enthusiast...
for On Ballycastle Beach - 1990 Hilary MantelHilary MantelHilary Mary Mantel CBE , née Thompson, is an English novelist, short story writer and critic. Her work, ranging in subject from personal memoir to historical fiction, has been short-listed for major literary awards...
for FluddFludd (novel)Fludd is a 1989 novel written by Hilary Mantel and first published by Viking Press, it won the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize that year.It is set in 1956, in Fetherhoughton, a fictional town somewhere on the moors of northern England, it centres on the convent and Roman Catholic church in the... - 1991 Marius Kociejowski for Coast
- 1993 R. S. ThomasR. S. ThomasRonald Stuart Thomas was a Welsh poet and Anglican clergyman, noted for his nationalism, spirituality and deep dislike of the anglicisation of Wales...
for Mass for Hard Times - 1994 Lyndall GordonLyndall GordonLyndall Gordon is a South African writer and academic, known for her literary biographies. Born in Cape Town, she was an undergraduate at the University of Cape Town, then a doctoral student at Columbia University...
for Charlotte Brontë: A Passionate Life - 1995 Kazuo IshiguroKazuo IshiguroKazuo Ishiguro OBE or ; born 8 November 1954) is a Japanese–English novelist. He was born in Nagasaki, Japan, and his family moved to England in 1960. Ishiguro obtained his Bachelor's degree from University of Kent in 1978 and his Master's from the University of East Anglia's creative writing...
for The UnconsoledThe UnconsoledThe Unconsoled is a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, winner of the Cheltenham Prize.-Plot introduction:The novel takes place over a period of three days. It is about Ryder, a famous pianist who arrives in a central European city to perform a concert. However, he appears to have lost most of his memory and...